Wednesday, August 19, 2015

是他说服中共领导层 让人民币贬值

是他说服中共领导层 让人民币贬值 www.creaders.net | 2015-08-18 22:27:33  英国《金融时报》 | 1条评论 | 查看/发表评论 
  20世纪80年代初, 一个博士生敦促中共解除价格管制,允许进口电视机,吸引了中共最高层领导人的注意。这个出身于高级干部家庭,大有前途的博士生就是周小川。
三十年过去,身为中国任职时间最长的央行行长,周小川还在说服中国政府领导层相信经济改革的好处。上周他说服中共领导层让人民币贬值,这可能会是他漫长职业生涯的最高成就,此举为人民币的自由浮动、成为能够挑战美元的国际储备货币铺平了道路。
  中国央行(PBoC)上周二突然宣布下调人民币兑美元汇率近两个百分点(这是自1994年以来的最大降幅),让市场猝不及防,并形成了所谓的汇率战前景。对内,周小川向中国国家主席习近平提议这一举措时,称它关系到国家利益,是经济增长大幅放缓形势下提振经济的一个必要举动。对外,中国央行将这次贬值描绘成朝着人民币汇率市场化、人民币交易自由化迈出的一步。周小川希望这种描绘能防止引发竞争性贬值,同时说服国际货币基金组织(IMF)将人民币纳入其储备货币篮子。
  能够让国际市场和中共党内中流砥柱都认同他的改革,标志着周小川作为一名了不起的技术官僚,站上了自己政治权力的巅峰,即使他已准备退休。虽然周小川常被比作中国的艾伦?格林斯潘(Alan Greenspan),但央行行长这一位置在中国的影响力远不如在美国。加息或降息这样的大决定是由中共领导人作出的。但与大多数岗位一样,是人赋予位置以权力,而不是反过来。
  周小川与习近平以及其他许多高级领导人一样,也是“太子党”出身,这一点赋予他远超官方头衔的影响力。周小川出生于1948年,中华人民共和国成立前一年。他的父亲二战期间成为早期共产党员和地下工作者,后曾担任第一机械工业部副部长。
  除了官方生平简历,中共高层领导人的个人信息被认为是国家机密,关于周小川父亲个人生活的公开信息非常少,只知道他的妻子是前化工部高级官员。
  1966年,周小川从北京一所重点中学毕业,同年,文革开始了。据两名知情人透露,周小川曾是一个红卫兵组织的领袖,这是一个迫害教师、“坏分子”和“走资派”的残暴组织。只要是过去几十年曾见过周小川的人,都很难相信这位慈眉善目、温文尔雅、彬彬有礼的男士曾卷入过当年那些暴行。
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  1968年,与其他数百万叛逆的青少年一样,周小川被下放到了偏远寒冷的东北地区的一家国有农场,在那4年放逐生涯中,他靠着听被禁的古典乐唱片来支撑精神。1973年,周小川的父亲平反,他因此获准回到北京,开始了学术生涯。在上世纪80年代,他在美国短暂地学习了一段时期,回国后就加入了一群年轻的技术官僚当中,努力推动中国向西方开放。
  在1989年中国前国家主席江泽民上台后——江泽民曾经是周小川父亲的门生——周小川这颗政治明星真正开始冉冉升起。周小川在许多政府部门担任过一把手,包括中国证监会(CSRC)——他在证监会由于努力打击新生资本市场的腐败而被称为“周扒皮”。他的头衔又一次没有反映出他的真正影响力。对于上世纪90年代初中国股票市场的建立、上世纪90年代末银行的纾困和重组、2000年代初股票市场改革以及自那以后债券市场的培育,他都起到了不小的作用。
  周小川经常出席IMF的会议,他睿智、英语流利、富有幽默感而且网球打得还不错,这些都让西方人折服。美国前财长汉克?保尔森(Hank Paulson)说,2006年劝说自己接受本已拒绝的财政部长一职的就是周小川。但这些让周小川颇受西方精英欢迎的特质,在国内却往往对他产生不利的影响。在国内,周小川被指责过于自由化、过于“外国化”以及与美国走得过近。
  周小川自2002年担任中国央行行长以来,媒体曾多次错误地报道称——至少有两次是英国《金融时报》报道的——他的政治生涯即将结束。周小川还一直是海外中文媒体的抨击目标,曾遭受各种指责,从内幕交易到向外国人廉价出售中资银行。2010年,有谣言称,为了逃避因美国国债投资亏损遭受惩处,周小川已叛逃到美国,随后中国央行不得不发布了周小川与外国要人在北京会晤的照片。
  曾担任美国中央情报局(CIA)中国事务高级分析师、现在华盛顿战略与国际研究中心(Center for Strategic and International Studies)任职的克里斯托弗?约翰逊(Christopher Johnson)表示:“显然他有时会惹恼一些人,其中包括中国国家主席习近平。但他从未像现在这么重要,这么有权力。他很快就要退休了,因此没有什么可损失的,他绝对是铁了心要完成自己大半生致力的市场改革。”  (作者吉密欧为英国《金融时报》北京分社社长。 译者/何黎)
- See more at: http://news.creaders.net/china/2015/08/18/1571438.html#sthash.A44q0K46.dpuf

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

U.S. Index Futures Fall as China Devalues Yuan, Commodities Drop

U.S. Index Futures Fall as China Devalues Yuan, Commodities Drop

Updated on
U.S. stock-index futures slid, following equities’ biggest gain since May, as China’s currency devaluation sparked concern across global markets that the world’s second-largest economy is headed for a deeper slowdown.
General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. slipped more than 1.3 percent. Caterpillar Inc., Tiffany & Co. and Apple Inc. each lost at least 1.4 percent. Google Inc. advanced 5.7 percent after saying it will reorganize into a holding company to be called Alphabet Inc.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index E-mini contracts expiring next month declined 0.7 percent to 2,084.75 at 8:44 a.m. in New York. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures slid 141 points, or 0.8 percent, to 17,412, after the underlying index on Monday snapped its longest losing streak since 2011.
“There’s more caution after a very strong day yesterday,” said Veronika Pechlaner, an investment manager at Ashburton Ltd. in Jersey, the Channel Islands. “The market is coming to terms on how much Asian exposure listed U.S. companies have.”
China devalued the yuan by 1.9 percent, the most in two decades, after data this month showed a plunge in exports, weaker-than-estimated manufacturing and a slowdown credit growth. The surprise move rippled through global markets, sparking selloffs in emerging-market currencies, commodities, and European auto and luxury stocks with exposure to China.

Commodities Retreat

Commodities declined amid speculation yuan weakness will erode the buying power of Chinese consumers. Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. producer of aluminum, fell 2.4 percent. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. lost at least 2 percent. Crude oil in the U.S. slumped 2.5 percent.
Investors will also look to corporate releases, as the earnings season draws to a close. Cisco Systems Inc. and News Corp. are among companies posting quarterly updates this week.
Of the S&P 500 members that have already reported, 74 percent beat profit estimates and about half topped sales projections. Analysts now project a more modest drop in second-quarter earnings, calling for a 2.1 percent fall instead of a 6.4 percent decline a month earlier.
Investors are also watching economic data to gauge when the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for the first time since 2006. A report today showed worker productivity struggled to gain traction in the second quarter after slumping over the previous six months. The measure of employee output per hour increased at a 1.3 percent annualized rate from April through June. A Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1.6 percent advance.
Unit labor costs, which are adjusted for efficiency gains, were forecast to be little changed, according to the Bloomberg survey median. They climbed 2.1 percent in the year ended June.
Among other shares moving on corporate news, Kraft Heinz Co. retreated 2.3 percent after quarterly sales missed estimates. Crane maker Terex Corp. jumped 22 percent after agreeing to merge with with Finnish competitor Konecranes Oyj.
Symantec Corp. added 2.5 percent after increasing its share buyback program, and as Carlyle Group LP said it will buy the security software maker’s Veritas data-storage unit for $8 billion in cash.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Favorite Hedge Fund Trade Turning Sour in U.S. Media Stock Rout

Favorite Hedge Fund Trade Turning Sour in U.S. Media Stock Rout

The love affair between hedge funds and media stocks is being tested.
Dragged down by concerns their revenue is at risk, cable television and movie stocks tracked by the 15-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Media Index tumbled 8.2 percent in two days, the biggest slump since 2008. The drop erased 2015’s gains for a group that has been a gold mine for professional investors, posting annualized returns of more than 33 percent since 2009.
Hedge funds have been near-constant champions of the industry, drawn in by its high cash generation and buybacks, takeover speculation and the straight-up momentum of the stocks themselves. This week’s retreat represents the sharpest rebuke to that thesis -- and one of its only setbacks in a bull market well into its seventh year.
“A lot of these funds are speculating on deals, they’re investors playing the spread and not fundamentals,” said Alpha Theory Advisors president Benjamin Dunn, who acts as adviser to hedge funds with about $6 billion in assets. “A few of these names are down big today and you got some pile-on effect with the smaller ones as well.”
Hedge funds own an average 9.7 percent of the 15 companies in the gauge, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s a bigger stake than in any of the other 23 industry groups within the S&P 500. The positions largely reflect merger speculation, said Dunn, who is based in Crested Butte, Colorado.

Rally Rulers

More than technology or even biotech, media stocks have ruled the rally that restored $17 trillion to American equity prices since the financial crisis. Companies from CBS Corp. to Tegna Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are among stocks with the 60 biggest increases during the stretch.
More than $110 billion in media takeovers have been announced in the past year, including Charter Communications Inc.’s pending $79 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc. In the same period, media companies in the index repurchased an average $2.22 billion of their own shares, more than any other industry in the S&P 500 apart from technology.
“People are buying other names in the space hoping valuations will increase for competitors and peers,” Scott Houlihan, a merger-arbitrage research analyst at Purchase, New York-based OTA Limited Partnership, said by phone. “Then again, you get a day like this where the whole sector gets devalued, and if you’re not hedged somehow you get punished.”

Major Holders

Disappointing results from Walt Disney Co. after the close of trading Tuesday sparked the rout. Selling spread to other television and publishing companies as quarterly reports from CBS Corp. to 21st Century Fox Inc. and Viacom Inc. were marked by shrinking U.S. ad sales and profits propped up by stock buybacks. Viacom fell 14 percent Thursday, its biggest drop since October 2008, while Fox slid 6.4 percent.
ValueAct Holdings LP, an activist investment firm run by Jeffrey Ubben, disclosed a 5.5 percent stake in Fox’s Class B shares on June 6, while Elliott Management Corp., a hedge fund run by Paul Singer, is the seventh-biggest holder of the stock, with a 1.9 percent stake as of March 31.
A spokesman for Elliott declined to comment, and Briana Zelaya of ValueAct didn’t immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.
Tensile Capital LLC, a San Francisco-based fund, owns 1.2 percent of News Corp.’s Class B shares as of the end of the first quarter, making it the eighth biggest holder. It was the third-largest U.S. public equity position for the firm at the end of the first quarter, accounting for 9.8 percent of that portfolio.
Arthur Young, portfolio manager at Tensile, declined to comment.

Evaporating Value

The fourth-biggest stake in Viacom’s Class A shares is with Ionic Capital Management LLC, according to a March 31 regulatory filing. Ionic’s largest U.S. stock position is another media company, Media General Inc., which makes up 5 percent of the firm’s disclosed stock holdings. Media General slumped 11 percent on Thursday.
Caroline Quinn, associate director of investor relations at Ionic, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the stock moves.
Until Tuesday, media shares were the best-performing stocks of the bull market, rising 531 percent to eclipse automakers, retail stores and banks. The industry’s market capitalization was about $650 billion, compared with $135 billion in March 2009.
That value is evaporating. In just five stocks -- Disney, Time Warner Inc., Fox, CBS and Comcast Corp. -- almost $50 billion of value has been erased in two days.
“It’s been a rough few days,” said Walter Todd, who oversees about $1.1 billion as chief investment officer for Greenwood Capital Associates. “People are shooting first and asking questions later. As an investor in Disney and Time Warner, this indiscriminate selling, to me, is just nuts.”