In a column today titled “China’s Market Sideshow Turns Into Main Event,” Bloomberg’s William Pesek, who I quoted in yesterday’s post on the Chinese stock market slide, said investors should not have been surprised: . . . on a relative basis, China has become the key emerging market for the U.S. “To a significant degree, as China goes, so go the emerging-market returns of U.S. investors,” Quinlan said. There you have it — the world’s most developed markets are more vulnerable than ever to the policies of officials in Beijing, regulators in Shanghai and companies throughout the most populous nation. [...]
The Dow Jones Industrial average closed down 3.29 percent, or 415.46 points Tuesday, the biggest one-day point drop since just after Sept. 11, 2001. The Nasdaq fell 3.86 percent. European markets also experienced the biggest single session declines since May 2006. The culprit for this selloff? Fears that the Chinese Central Bank would act to slow a potentially overheated Chinese economy. The Shanghai stock market was the first to tumble on these fears: Shanghai’s Composite Index shed nearly 9% — the biggest decline in a decade — on what analysts said were widespread efforts by investors to cash in on [...]
The Financial Times and the New York Post are having a ball with news globetrotting actress Angelina Jolie could become a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Post apparently jumped the gun with the “BABE AMID BRANIACS” headline atop its Feb. 25 story claiming CFR has “decided to admit” Jolie, who’ll “soon be rubbing elbows with other club members such as Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Alan Greenspan.” FT explained on Feb. 26 that CFR has merely decided “to accept the 32-year-old to be considered for a special five-year term.” Note the more careful [...]
