Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

The Coming Hard Landing of China

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China-flag-shanghai-skyline-image

China is a success story told many times over. It’s economic miracle has been the stuff of folklore. There are investors out there who think that China will keep growing forever. The commodity speculators love China. Be it oil price or copper, any spike in price in any commodity is attributed to the insatiable demand from China. But behind the obvious, there is another story. For those who are willing to question the fairy tale story, it is time to short China.

Let us start by looking at the socio-economic model of China. The communist party of China has ruled the country with iron hand for over from 1949. The political elite of China want to avoid any social unrest and upheaval at any cost. They have an unenviable task.  They have to provide enough work, food and shelter to the millions of ordinary Chinese. Being a command economy means there is no free market. The local purchasing power is insignificant compared to the western world. In order to create work and alleviate poverty, the leadership decided to take the route of growth by export.

Today China is the manufacturing powerhouse of the world and the single biggest factor in the growth has been low labour cost. Companies from all over the world shifted their production base to China to take advantage of the cheap labour. With the result, western civilization lost jobs. But most of the wages that a Chinese worker gets is at a level that is just sufficient for survival. Millions of rural poor migrate to bigger coastal cities in search of work and live in deplorable conditions. The worst part of the deal is that the companies that produce goods for the world do so at a very low level of margin, average 4% to remain competitive. And now every country is trying to grow out of poverty through export. Irony is, not every country can be net exporter, and someone has to be net importer as well. And consumers in western civilization do not have the capacity anymore.

Stressed out

China imports all the raw materials from other countries, iron ore from Australia, Energy from Middle East, and Machinery from Germany and produce goods to export. When the world demand for the cheap Chinese goods plummet, as it will with the slowdown of the global economy, what will happen to the export oriented growth model?

After 2008, China decided to kick start its economy through construction. And they found it is the easiest way to keep people employed while projecting a growth of GDP. But creating assets which does not give income does not actually create sustainable growth. When, not if, the world economy slows down in the coming months and years, the available capital to continue such useless construction projects will come to a halt. Already millions of homes and cities are lying vacant across China. As if the sub-prime housing crisis is being played all over again in China, but with a much greater scale.


 

Over the last 40 years, there has been a growing middle class in China who are well educated and are demanding. Since the currency is pegged to US dollar, the QE in the USA is exporting inflation to China in the form of higher food cost. And unlike in America, food cost constitutes over 40% of the average household expenditure in China. So inflation is rising in China and China is now battling hard to control the price rise. This is causing huge social unrest and the Communist Party if uneasy about it. As a result, we are seeing a slow rise in the value of Chinese Yuan vis-à-vis US$. But this cuts both ways. While a rising Yuan will help reduce the cost of imported foods, it will reduce the profit margin of the exports and make them uncompetitive. More so in today’s week demand situation where the exporters do not have the leverage of negotiating higher prices.

Migrant Workers in China

There are talks about the huge Chinese holding of US debt and the threat they possess to US Economy. Actually it is the other way round. China has no option but to invest in US treasury and if they don’t, they would not be able to keep their currency down and be totally uncompetitive. If they want to sell the massive holding of the US Treasury bonds, they would push the prices down and lose money.  So again, China is caught in a no win situation there. With the money fleeing Europe, there is no shortage of demand of US Treasury, at least for now. So US do not need China, as much as China needs US.

The demographics are another factor to be worried about China. With one child policy strictly followed by the party for so long, the average age of the population is growing and the country is graying. Moreover, because Chinese parents prefer boys to girls, there have been systemic abortions of girl fetus on a large scale for a very long period of time. With the result, the ratio of man and woman has been totally skewed. In some places there is one woman for every two men and poor migrant workers cannot get wife for the love of their life.

Central command always fails. The asset allocation in central command economy is not based on efficient use but what the part leaders think best. And few people cannot decide what is best for millions. Corruption is rampant and so are the red gift bags. Even the death penalty does not deter the local authorities much. The end result is something other than desired.

Corrupt_600

The bubble is about to burst along with the global debt deleveraging and the popping  sound will be heard loud, far and wide for many years to come.

Visit World of Finance http://bbfinance.blogspot.com/ for more insightful analysis of world macro economics. Follow us on Twitter. bbfinanceblog. If you think some one will like this post, please forward. Thanks. 

Ratios and Symmetry (By eMiniSchool.com)

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8.13SPY1

8.13SPY2

In the last posts we were noting the symmetry levels on the support side of the market. The ES,TF, and DOW all came down and hit the symmetry support but none of them closed below the support levels. The only one that did not hit the symmetry support was the NQ (it came close).

We received emails saying we were crazy for putting out support levels as the market was falling and how "this time" the market is different so the levels do not mean anything. It seems like every time the market starts to try to make a top it is always "different" from before but in reality it is no different.

If you look at the charts above we noted the symmetry going up. We did this so you can see how the calculation has worked in the past. It is up to you if you want to follow the levels or ignore them but you will see using the calculation it would have told you where the turning points were. These turning points are part of how we get symmetry for the entire pattern. 

The top chart is the last high. Going from the 09 low there was 55 bars up (55 is a important number). From that high we pulled back and from that low we went up 36 bars. Divide those and you will get 1.5262 then divide that by two (Two Waves up) and you will get .763 and you will see how the last high was at the .763

Go to the bottom chart and we broke down that first leg into two minor waves. First leg up 29 bars and the second leg up 35, divide those and you will get 1.21 and divide by two and you will get .605% and you will see how that number picked the high in April 09'.

We cannot say for sure that the symmetry support where we are now will hold forever and it is not there to tell us that but it is there to tell us if the trend is still true or if it has changed and now is false. If the up wave becomes false that is when we get a true trend reversal. 

There is minor and major symmetry and the last posts on our blog are noting the major symmetry levels. If we bounce up from where we are now and then fail to take out the high and roll back over we will be breaking symmetry support and fall to the inverse of symmetry. If you go back and understand how to get the calculation you will see it picks it almost every time. 

We also used this in our AAPL timing Video here: http://eminischool.blogspot.com/2011/07/aapl-timing-video.html  

To get the symmetry support on the markets use this link and go back through the last couple of pages and we have noted all the markets.  http://wwweminischool.wordpress.com/   ( we will update the levels again tomorrow night on the wordpress blog) 

Happy Trading,

www.eMiniSchool.com 

PS. If you take the first 605% and the second .763% and add them together you will get 1.368 then divide that by two you will get .684%. Take that and divide it again by two and you will get .35 which is the average symmetry support for all the markets right now.