The stock markets opened badly after the New Year Day. The situation in Middle East suddenly became tense, intensifying markets' worries about the prospects of the emerging economies and even of the world economy. As a result, investors further increased cash in their investment portfolios to hedge against investment risk. Selling pressure was heavy in global stock markets on the first trading day in 2016. Among others, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets tumbled 7% to 8%. Hong Kong shares also fell nearly 3%. Investors were caught off guard. This is a harbinger of a year of global economic and financial turbulences.Investors would better make defensive investment.The general strategy is to make break-even investment and hold more cash.
On the beginning of this year, investment markets were shocked to see the first unexpected Black Swan, namely a sudden geopolitical change in Middle East.The sudden execution of a Shiite cleric by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporting country, has prompted waves of protest by Shiite Muslims in the Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia cut its diplomatic ties with Iran after its embassy in Tehran was stormed by local Shiite protestors, and Bahrain and Sudan immediately followed suit. A fierce conflict between religious factions in Middle East is on the verge of breaking out.
As the tense geopolitical situation in Middle East rapidly intensifies, global sentiments to hedge risks sharply grow to result in a new wave of dumping risk assets, accelerating the flow of capital into safe-haven assets. Investors are worried that the situation in Middle East may go out of control to cause damage to global economic and financial stability and even affect the normal supply of oil. Thus the possibility could not be ruled out that savvy funds had sped up cashing out stocks, making the first trading day after the New Year an unlucky one for the global stock markets.
As a matter of fact, international oil price has tumbled more than 60% to US$36 per barrel, which exerts heavy financial pressure on oil producing countries in the Middle East as their incomes from oil exports cannot cover their financial spending. As reported, Middle Eastern sovereign funds began from last year to keep cashing out in global investment markets. For instance, Saudi Arabia is estimated to have redeemed assets worth US$70 billion from asset management companies. In recent months, the Saudi Arabian government was forced to cut subsidies to sharply increase domestic gasoline price. This has prompted concerns with Saudi Arabia's financial problems and whether it is able to defend the exchange rate of its currency, and worries whether the Saudi Arabian currency would be de-pegged with the US dollar, which would be a calamity for the whole world.
The Middle East is overcast with heavy clouds. This no doubt adds problems and trouble to the fragile world economy, dragging down further the emerging economies at any moment. It is also likely to trigger a new round of currency and debt crises. The incident of Saudi Arabia's execution of a Shiite cleric is still fermenting. The exchange rates of currencies of the emerging economies are under steady pressure. South Korean Won, Malaysian Ringgit, Indonesian Rupiah and Turkish Lira all shed about 1% yesterday.
The exchange rate of onshore renminbi (CNY) also suffered an underserved ill turn, once dropping to 6.53 against a US dollar last night, down 0.6%. Growing expectations on devaluation of renminbi (RMB) inevitably hurt A-share investors' confidence, leading Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets to drop sharply to trigger a "circuit-breaker" mechanism on the first day of its implementation.
What is worthy of attention is that financial "big crocodiles" attempting to short sell China never drop the idea. They may take this opportunity of escalation of geopolitical tension in the Middle East to launch a sneak attack, making a big fuss of the worse-than-expected Caixin PMI to profiteering through speculation. In fact, this year is the beginning for China to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. As long as the supply-side reforms, such as in cutting excessive industrial capacity, destocking, de-leveraging, lowering corporate costs and improving weak links, make progress, new driving force for economic growth can be reconstructed. China's economic restructuring has entered a deep-water area, so it is normal and inevitable to suffer some labour pains.
Undeniably, 2015 was a difficult year for global investment markets. Stock markets, foreign exchanges markets, bonds market and commodities were all in the red, whose performances being the worse since in nearly 80 years. The bitter downturn tendency is very likely to continue in 2016, reflecting the sluggish prospects of the world economy. Investors must remain alert about the coming of Black Swans one after another. Bubble burst of the US stock market bubble is most likely to be the next Black Swan.
There are traces for the burst of US stock bubble. The Dow Jones Industrial Average discontinued its hike in six consecutive years to drop 2.2% last year. The decision by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) to normalise interest rates is disputable.Under the circumstances of low growth and low inflation, the Fed still strained to increase interest rates, which no doubt would accelerate the arrival of a nightmare. If the US is forced to cut rates after the increase, it is bound to trigger panic selling of US stocks, which in turn would affect global markets. In face of such a complicated situation, investors surely must keep their safety belts fastened.
05 January 2016