Wallet Relief Blog

The Chinese Perspective: What Global Recession?
by Tony Sagami

You’ve probably never heard of the Canton Fair, but it is the largest trade fair in the world, where thousands of manufacturers, businessmen, and merchants gather to conduct business.

The Canton Fair is co-hosted by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China and the People’s Government of Guangdong Province, and organized by the China Foreign Trade Centre.

Also known as the China Import & Export Fair, the Canton Fair has been held in the spring and fall since 1957 and has the largest assortment of products, the highest attendance, and the largest number of business deals made at any trade show on the planet.

22,000 exhibitors and 200,000 buyers from more than 200 countries gather in Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) to find everything from industrial products, textiles and garments, medicines and health products, gifts, and consumer goods.

At the most recent fair, a total of $38.2 billion worth of goods were ordered, accounting for a whopping 25% of China’s entire annual export total. The Canton Fair is simply the single most important business event of the year.

Hey! Somebody needs to tell the businessmen at the Canton Fair that the world is falling into a deep global recession because the businessmen in attendance are too busy making money to listen to what the “experts” from Wall Street and CNBC keep telling us.

Exports Fuel China’s Unstoppable Economy

Get this: The number of exhibitors at the Canton Fair hit 53,000, 10% more than just six months ago.

The reason is simple - the export business is still booming. According to the Ministry of Commerce, China’s exports rose 22.3% to $1.07 trillion during the first three quarters of this year. In September alone, exports rose by 21.5% a year earlier and China boasted a trade surplus of $29.3 billion.

“Export figures do not seem to be very discouraging now,” confirms Zhang Yansheng, director of the International Economic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.

“China’s economic fundamentals are still strong, so are exports,” Yao Shenhong, a Ministry of Commerce spokesman concurs.

Example: Haier Group, the largest appliance manufacturer in China, reported a 10% increase in foreign sales in the first nine months of the year.

Of course, the good fortune isn’t universal. What is happening is that Chinese exports to the U.S. and Europe are rapidly slowing, but exports to its Asian neighbors, Russia, Latin American, Africa, and the Middle East are skyrocketing.

It may sound ironic, but exports to developed countries are plummeting but exports to emerging markets are soaring.

The reason for the dichotomy is simple: Developed countries are sitting on billions of quasi-worthless mortgage bonds, while emerging market countries never had enough money to invest in the toxic bonds our Wall Street alchemists created, packed, and peddled.

China, for example, has a closed financial system that severely limited how many Chinese companies, banks, and governmental agencies are allowed to invest in foreign securities. China simply doesn’t own a meaningful amount of our crappy mortgage bonds.

Even Chinese consumers are in solid shape. The total household debt as a percentage of GDP in the U.S. is more than 100%, but is only a meager 13% in China.

The result is that for the first time that I can remember in my 30-year investment career, the risk of investing in the developed countries is higher than investing in emerging markets.

Market moves to make now

China’s good fortune in the midst of economic crisis in the U.S. may not make market conditions in the West more palpable, but it does offer a ray of hope. Here’s what you should do:

Step 1: Use rallies to reduce your U.S. holdings. The market has been very volatile, but volatility can be your friend if you use big dips as buying opportunities and big rallies as selling opportunities. That is exactly what I did last Monday when the Dow Jones soared by 936 points and I trimmed my U.S. holdings.

Step 2: Dump the station wagon for a Ferrari. Given the choice of hitching your investment wagon to a slow jalopy headed for the junk yard or a 200-mph high-performance sports car … I’ll take the faster ride every time. I suggest the same for your portfolio and recommend that you overweigh your portfolio with stocks, funds, and/or ETFs from Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Step 3: Buy yourself some “haywire” insurance. I’ve been saying this for a long time, but I’ll say it again: I expect the U.S. economy and the U.S. stock market to get ugly. If things do get ugly, the best haywire insurance you can buy is gold, gold stocks, or gold funds.

Lastly, the one thing that you should NOT do is do nothing. Don’t let the volatility turn you into a deer-in-the-headlights investor who is too frightened to do anything. Doing nothing has been a very costly strategy in the last month and I expect the cost of inaction to go even higher.

Tony Sagami

This investment news is brought to you by Money and Markets. Money and Markets is a free daily investment newsletter from Martin D. Weiss and Weiss Research analysts offering the latest investing news and financial insights for the stock market, including tips and advice on investing in gold, energy and oil. Dr. Weiss is a leader in the fields of investing, interest rates, financial safety and economic forecasting. To view archives or subscribe, visit http://www.moneyandmarkets.com.

Dow Drops 733; Another Reason to Like Gold
by Larry Edelson

The credit collapse is not entirely over. Nor is its impact on Main Street.

And as we saw yesterday, there will be more sell-offs, sharp ones that scare the dickens out of nearly everyone.

That’s why I suggest sticking mainly with natural resource-based companies that operate businesses which deal in assets that have intrinsic value - and that will be the main recipients of the next wave of what I call the “Great Re-inflation.”

At the top of that list is my all-time favorite: Gold.

You know I’m a gold bug. And given everything that’s happening in the world today, I’m more of a gold bug than ever before.

How can you NOT be in gold?

There are dozens of reasons I believe everyone must own some gold. But lately, there’s another one that’s rising to the surface …

China Is Soon Going to Make Some Big Buys In the Gold Market

Just yesterday, China’s central bank announced that its foreign-exchange reserves rose to a record $1.905 trillion.

If China were to lay this nearly $2 trillion in surplus reserves end-to-end using dollar bills, the trail would stretch for 193,813,130 miles. That’s enough to wrap around the widest part of the earth 7,752 times!

Clearly, Beijing’s piggy bank is overflowing with money. In fact, at nearly $2 trillion, China has the largest foreign reserves of any country in the history of the planet.

Compare it to Washington, which now has nearly $11.4 trillion in debts, not counting the contingent liabilities of the real estate crisis, Social Security or Medicare.

Whose paper currency do you think should have more purchasing power? Naturally, the yuan. Yet that’s not the case - the dollar remains stronger.

But not for long.

I warned of this a couple of years ago, but now the signs are even clearer: Over the next few years China is essentially going to corner the world’s gold market.

It’s one of the chief reasons I am now even more bullish on gold, expecting the price of the precious yellow metal to eventually exceed $2,000 an ounce.

Mind you, Beijing won’t intentionally set out to corner the gold market. But, in effect, that will be the end result.

Take it from me. I’ve met with central bankers, regulators, and gold traders in China and Asia. I know Beijing’s views on the yuan and gold.

You see, Beijing knows that the dollar’s status as a reserve currency is soon going to be history. Just like the pound sterling lost its status as the world’s reserve currency in the early 20th century.

And authorities in Beijing also believe that as China rapidly progresses toward superpower economic status, the yuan should be a world-class, stable medium of exchange.

They envision the yuan as a major international currency some day, with as much (or more) status than the U.S. dollar. That’s why they’re going to back the yuan with gold … loads of it.

Plus, there’s another reason for Beijing to buy more gold as part of China’s piggy bank. China has an estimated $1.3 trillion invested in dollar-denominated investments. They can’t get out of the dollar quickly. It would destroy the U.S. economy which would have a direct negative impact on China.

So the smart thing to do: Hedge and diversify existing dollar holdings with gold.

Consider this: Right now, China has a mere 0.9% of its reserves in gold (600 tons). That’s the lowest of any industrialized economy! To put it into perspective …

• The U.S. has 77.3% of its foreign reserves in gold.

• The European Union has 23% of its reserves in gold.

• Lithuania, Mozambique, and even tiny Nepal all have more of their reserves in gold than China.
Just to up its reserves to 5% in gold, Beijing would have to purchase $93 billion worth of bullion. That could easily send the yellow metal skyrocketing to more than $2,000 an ounce.

And if China were to match roughly half of the gold reserves held by the United States, it would have to buy another $636 billion worth. That kind of buying would send gold to well more than $2,000 an ounce. Probably to $3,000, or even higher.

My view: China has already started purchasing small amounts of gold. It’s one of the reasons gold is now holding support at its 1980 high in the mid-$800 level, well above important support levels on the charts from $600 up to $735 an ounce.

This is yet another reason I recommended you substantially increase your gold holdings back in mid-September 2008.

I believe gold is still one of the best bets out there, loaded with huge profit opportunities. No matter what aspect of the market I examine, I see much, much higher prices to come for the precious yellow metal.

Larry Edelson

This investment news is brought to you by Money and Markets. Money and Markets is a free daily investment newsletter from Martin D. Weiss and Weiss Research analysts offering the latest investing news and financial insights for the stock market, including tips and advice on investing in gold, energy and oil. Dr. Weiss is a leader in the fields of investing, interest rates, financial safety and economic forecasting. To view archives or subscribe, visit http://www.moneyandmarkets.com.