This year is seen going down as the worst since 2011 for China’s stock investors as the memory of last summer’s rout lingers and speculative buying switches to the housing market.
The Shanghai Composite Index will end the year at 3,075, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg poll of 10 strategists and fund managers. That implies a 13 percent drop over the 12-month period, the steepest in five years, and a gain of 2.9 percent from Wednesday’s close. Fading prospects for monetary easing, a slowing economy and the risk of higher U. S. borrowing costs spurring yuan weakness were among factors weighing on the nation’s shares, the survey showed.
Turnover on the world’s second-largest stock market has collapsed to a two-year low as China’s army of investors, unnerved by 2015′s plunge in equity values, charged into other assets. After a frenzied bet on commodities futures soured, they have set their sights on a bigger target – property. With new home prices now jumping the most in six years, analysts are scaling back projections for interest-rate cuts.
‘The property market and the stock market are like a seesaw,’ said Li Lifeng, a strategist at Sinolink Securities Co. in Shanghai. ‘If the ‘fever’ in the property market doesn’t cool down, funds will flow from equities into real estate.’
Small-cap technology stocks are the least preferred by analysts in the survey because of stretched valuations, while building companies are favored thanks to government efforts to boost infrastructure investment.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on September 29, 2016.
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