More On China Stocks -- Shanghai

First up, let's look at the monthly Shanghai for the longer run dating back to the mid - 1990s.
Shanghai Composite

In 1995, the Shanghai was in the area of 700. If you figure a 10% annual compound return, that
works out to about 4700 currently, which is just where the Shanghai is sitting. The issue here is that
China is no longer logging 10% growth and is struggling to achieve 7% annual growth. With a
forward look, the base at 4700 is too high for an economy with a pronounced decelerating growth
trend. The index has a large component of pure speculative interest.

Note also that the monthly RSI shows an overbought reading nearly right up there with the
bubble top of 2007. Now since China's book profits have grown significantly since then, the
p/e ratio on the market is considerably lower now than back during the bubble top, but even
so, this is not a cheap market as it was in mid - 2014 at the 2000 level. Note also that the very
high RSI readings up near 80 or above since the mid - '90s have served as good warning lights.

Now comes the weekly chart for the Shanghai. $SSEC The top panel of the chart compares the
Shanghai with the S&P SPDR index ETF for China. There is not a long history here, but the
$SSEC has tended to top out in relative strength against the GXC in the 50 - 55 area (the last
time was 2007).

China has a long history of domestic turmoil and is the graveyard of prognosticators. Apropos,
the US State Dep't and the CIA keep their fingers crossed for stability and hope for the best.
Now, with Mr. Xi trying to shift gears on economic and financial policy, China is going into one
of those times when its "social contract" -- its citizens tolerate  the the Party in exchange for
continuing prosperity -- may be tested for one of the few times in the past 35 years.