A股反弹并不说明刺激措施奏效 A-share rally doesn't mean stimulus is working

对中国A股市场创出7个月高点的一个解释是，经济刺激措施发挥了作用。另一个看法是，占中国股市99%的国内投资者过于相信政府推动经济复苏的能力了。

有关刺激方案带来复苏的所有言论，很容易让人想起日本在上世纪90年代泡沫破裂后的时代。似乎每年都会宣布新的政府刺激方案。我记得，当时来自日本的同事也不断大讲特讲复苏的故事，直到日本方面不再派人或他们被召回为止。

一个问题是，刺激资金都用到了回报率低下的非生产项目中，实际上相当于排挤了私营部门，而日本最终又需要更多税收来偿还刺激资金。

也许中国这次采取的措施会有所不同？

在深圳海边，最近竣工的公路和现代化的隧道给人们留下了深刻印象，不过在上面行驶的车辆寥寥无几。这种投资无疑有助于中国实现8%的GDP增长目标，但这类项目很难取代大量消失的制造业工作岗位。

面对全球贸易崩溃造成的冲击，迄今为止，中国经济复苏的证据还很难找到。

上周公布的3月份里昂证券中国采购经理人指数从2月份的45.1降到了44.8，仍在继续收缩。中国今年前两个月的工业产值增幅为3.8%，也低于预期。

上周五，中国自己的采购经理人指数显示，3月份出现了回升，但对于这些经过季节性因素调整的数字，外界普遍表示怀疑。

中国股市可能是今年以来全球表现最好的股市。但这究竟说明了什么？

人们越来越怀疑，A股的上扬并不是经济复苏的领先指标，而是巨额银行刺激贷款流入股市造成的。

据《财经》杂志称，中国各银行3月份共放贷1.6万亿元（合2,340亿美元），使今年第一季度的总贷款额达到了4万亿元，同中国政府经济刺激方案的总投资相等。这也意味着中国已经接近完成全年5万亿元的贷款目标。

除了对这笔资金最终会进入股票市场的担忧之外，还有一点就是其中很大一部分贷款是满足公司短期资金需求的票据贴现融资。与经济放缓伴随而来的问题是，银行很少能找到有利可图的放贷领域。中国在刺激资金的使用方面是否比10年前的日本做得更好，我们还需要拭目以待。

质疑中国股票市场上涨的另一个理由是，它们显然都是散户驱动的。如果投资者只是看到去年一些令人难忘的收益数字，他们可能会受到鼓舞，但未来一年的情况或许令人担忧。

麦格理证券(Macquarie Securities)在一份最新研究报告中悲观地指出，迄今为止的08财年数据在某种程度上让人们看到了定价能力的削弱、利润率的下降、资本支出的国家化、房地产完工的推迟和银行问题资产的上升。

也有证据表明，曾推高大陆股指的一些指标可能正在改变走势。铜、石油等商品价格以及波罗的海货运指数的回升曾显示中国大陆的经济可能出现了反弹。

然而，MainFirst Securities在一份新的策略报告中指出，波罗的海干散货指数自今年年初回升后，目前已经明显显示出掉头向下的迹象。该指数曾从1,000点反弹至2,200点，但目前已经回落到1,500点左右。

对油轮运费上涨的一个解释是，由于原油的期货价格高于现货，市场猜测石油投机者可能一直在使用油轮储存现货石油。

如果这是真的，那么当这种交易解除时，油轮的闲置运能将大量出现。上周油轮运费创出了本轮调整的新低。这种交易还取决于原油价格的前景。MainFirst警告说，美国原油库存经近期上升后目前已位于16年的高点。

看来，对中国出口至关重要的全球贸易并未出现复苏。据报导，贸易枢纽新加坡就像一个油轮墓地一样，因为这个国家80%的油轮由于没有货物可运都停泊在港口。

尽管存在这些情况，但看好中国的观点认为，中国仍有充足的刺激弹药可以使用，它既可以增加开支，也可以减息。

但我们需要看到刺激资金正在发挥作用的真实证据，而不是它们被用于股票交易或是为股票交易提供保证金融资。
One way of looking at China's A-share market hitting a seven-month high is that stimulus economics works. The other is that local investors -- who make up 99% of the market -- have a misplaced faith in their government's ability to turn the economy around.

All the talk of stimulus package recoveries is very reminiscent of Japan in the post-bubble 1990s. It seemed every year a new government package was announced. Back then, I remember, there were only so many times my colleagues from Japan could pitch that recovery story until they stopped coming or being asked back.

A problem was that stimulus dollars were spent on unproductive projects with low returns, effectively crowding out the private sector -- and then Japan also eventually needed more taxes to pay for it.

Perhaps the latest measures will be different?

Traveling up the coast in Shenzhen, recently the new highways and modern tunnels were certainly impressive, although there were few vehicles using them. No doubt this investment well help to raise China's GDP number to that 8% goal, but projects like this will hardly replace the exodus of manufacturing jobs.

So far evidence of a recovery in China's economy is hard to find as it reels from the collapse in global trade.

Last week the CSLA purchasing managers' index was down to 44.8 from 45.1 in March over February, suggesting a continued slowdown. We also had a lower-than-expected 3.8% rise in industrial production in the first two months of the year.

On Friday China's own PMI Index showed a rebound in March but there is widespread skepticism on those seasonally adjusted numbers.

Much is being made that China's stock market is now the world's best-performing equity market this year. But what exactly is this telling us?

Rather than being a leading indicator of an economic recovery, a growing suspicion is the A-share move is due to the huge bank stimulus lending being funneled into the stock market.

After China's banks lent 1.6 trillion yuan ($234 billion) in March, according to Caijing magazine, this brings the running tally for the first quarter of the year to 4 trillion yuan, in itself equivalent to Beijing's stimulus program. It also means China is already close to the 5 trillion yuan lending target for the full year.

Adding to concern this money has ended up in the stock market, a big proportion of lending is discounted bill financing for companies' short-term financing needs. The usual problem with a slowing economy is there are few profitable areas for banks to lend. We will only find out later if China is making a better job of spending its stimulus than Japan a decade earlier.

The other reason to question the lead of China's stock markets is that they are so notoriously retail driven. If investors are just looking at some of the headline earnings figures from last year, they could be encouraged but the concern is the year ahead.

Macquarie Securities comments ominously in a new report, 'FY08 results thus far have produced anecdotal evidence of weakening pricing power, softer margins, 'national service' levels of capex, delayed property completions and rising levels of questionable bank assets.'

There is also evidence some of the indicators that have buoyed the resource-heavy mainland indexes may be changing course. The pick-up in the price of commodities such as copper, oil as well as the Baltic Freight Index had suggested the mainland economy might be stirring.

However, MainFirst Securities points out in a new strategy note that the Baltic Freight dry Index is showing clear signs of breaking down again after turning up since the beginning of the year. After being as low as 1,000 the index hit 2,200 but is now back down to around 1,500.

One explanation why tanker rates moved up is speculation that oil speculators have been using tankers to hold physical oil, made possible by a large contango in oil prices.

If true, a lot of spare tanker capacity will come on line when this trade is unwound. Last week oil tanker rates fell to a new cycle low. The other side of the trade is outlook for crude. MainFirst warns that after the recent run up in U.S. crude inventories, they are now at 16-year high.

It looks as if global trade, which is so important to China's export base, is not recovering. Reportedly, trade hub Singapore is like a tanker graveyard with 80% of the tankers that operate out of the island state at anchor as they have no cargo to carry.

Despite all this, the bull argument for China remains that it still has plenty more stimulus ammunition to deploy -- either with more spending or rate cuts.

But we need to see real evidence that stimulus is actually working, not just being applied or providing margin financing for share trading.