The Hang Seng pushed its way forward, gaining .4% today, with a boost from recently controversial
Esprit Holdings as it appointed a new CEO and gained 28%. In the opposite direction StanChart
was hammered today by Iran allegations. StanChart began the day up over 10% this year, however
finished down 5.8% for the year with today’s massive sell-off and drop of 14.9%.The insurance sector
underperformed today with China Life losing 1.2% and Ping An insurance losing .5%. China Vanke,
the country’s largest developer, reported H1 profit 25% higher than a year ago, however margins and
average home price is down, volume rose thanks to lower costs.
European shares are down as expectations of appropriate action by the ECB begin to fade. The
FTSEurofirst dipped .1% today reversing its rally following Spanish and Italian trends as Spain dropped to
finish flat and Italy to lose .3%. Elsewhere the German Dax is up .3% and the French CAC 40 is up .5%.
The Eurozone rejected a request from Greece for a bridge loan to pay back a 3.2B bond to the ECB, who
then proposed to delay the repayment by a month. Greece will now auction 6B of short term paper to
banks this week.
Commodities are looking pretty good set to begin the morning with crude, silver and gold all up and
natural gas hanging in the red.
Contributer Chris Rygh is currently pursuing his MBA in Wisconsin and has a passion for the Market.
Comments can be directed to ryghcw19@uww.edu