EQUITIES: where are your Chinese stocks?

QUESTION:  Where are your Chinese stocks?

ANSWER: We don’t recommend holding any Chinese stock in an equities portfolio.

Essentially, transparency on the economy, markets and companies in China is very low due to reasons most sentient life forms would be familiar with.  The conditions could be great; the conditions could be terrible: no one knows for certain.  (Actually, if someone says they do know, they are lying unless they are members of the Politburo.)

However, we do know something important about China: the weathly are leaving.  This is not like US plutocrats leaving New York for Miami.  There are serious issues for Chinese folks to change their domicile so the reasons must be substantial.

TSA posits that conditions to increase wealth in China is now not as great as it was during the time the Chinese emigrants created their first million(s).  Hence, if insiders are leaving, why should you invest?

Contact TurnerStreet if you wish to buy our current asset allocation recommendation (we do cash and equity only allocations for our wholesale clients), and the list of the stocks TurnerStreet would buy for a typical wholesale client, or if you would like TurnerStreet to manage your equities and derivatives portfolio.

IMPORTANT: This Q&A is general product advice for wholesale or sophisticated investors, and NOT suitable for retail investors.  Retail investors should seek advice specific to their circumstances and not rely upon general product advice written for other types of investors.  Retail investors acting like wholesale/sophisticated investor are likely to experience inappropriate and/or excessive risk for their circumstances, and unacceptable losses.

DAX and SPX: why the difference?

QUESTION: Despite the energy situation in Germany, and Europe, the DAX index has substantially outperformed the S&P500 index, why?

ANSWER:  Yes, the DAX has outperformed but not as substantially as most believe because the indices are differently calculated.

The most obvious difference is that the DAX is an accumulation index (i.e. it adds dividend payments to change in stock prices) while the SPX is a non-accumulation index.  Fundamentally, the DAX has less exposure to tech stocks.

However, we expect more downside risk to the DAX (energy and China exposure) that SPX (continued tech weakness and US political risk).