Much has been made about China’s makeover during the last 25 years. What has occurred there is fascinating. Here are 10 curious things:
- China is now the No. 2 economy in the world based on GDP.
- More people live in China than in any other country on the planet. The world population is 7.3 billion according to the U.S. Census Bureau and China has 19% of it at 1.373 billion.
- 688 million. That is the estimate for the number of internet users in China at the end of 2015 according to data from the China Internet Network Center. Let’s see, that’s about 50% of their population and more than twice the total number of people in the United States.
- The 3 Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity at 22,500 MW.
- China launched it first moon space mission on Dec. 2, 2013 and China’s Yutu rover is currently exploring the moon’s surface.
Middle Kingdom
Of course I could go on and on. The world is changing and it is changing fast! But before I go to the subject of stocks, I want to mention some historical things about China that might make the current activity not so surprising. Middle Kingdom is a name often used for China. I am not sure where it originated but it may have been because they thought they were in the middle of the world.
In Jimmy Roger’s book, A Bull in China, he mentions several interesting historical items:
- Chinese explorer Cheng Ho set sail on ships twice the size of Columbus’ ships in the fifteenth century and explored much of the world.
- The Chinese invented gunpowder centuries before the Europeans.
- In the sixteenth century, when European explorers took the lead by venturing to the New World, over half the silver found in the Americas, ended up in China as payment for trade. ( sound familiar, since they are today, the world’s largest creditor nation)
- The ancient capital of Changan, now called Xi’an, was at one time the largest city on earth.
- Evidence of rice cultivation and recognizable “Chinese” art, reaches back around seven thousand years.
Back to Stocks
In today’s free video I review this week’s market action by reviewing the S&P 500 (SPX), NYSE Composite Index (NYA) and the Russell 2000 (RUT). I also review several ETFs and look at Facebook (FB).
How well do you understand the trading business?