Wednesday, October 13, 2021

"China property shares pummelled as Evergrande impact widens"

 From Reuters via ChannelNewsAsia, October 14:

SHANGHAI: Shares of Chinese real estate firms slid on Thursday (Oct 14) as investors fretted about a debt crisis rippling through developers including China Evergrande Group, a day after the sector was hit with fresh rating downgrades.

Evergrande, which has more than US$300 billion in liabilities and 1,300 real estate projects in over 280 cities, missed a third round of interest payments on its international bonds this week, and some other firms have warned they could default.

Growing risks in the sector led rating agency S&P Global to deliver fresh downgrades to two of the sector's bigger firms, Greenland Holdings - which has built some of the world's tallest residential towers - and E-house, and warn it could cut their ratings further.

Adding to the concerns of investors who have increasingly been hoping for policy easing to stabilise a wobbly recovery in the world's second-largest economy, new data on Thursday showed China's annual factory gate prices rising at the fastest pace on record in September due to soaring raw material prices....

....MUCH MORE

If interested see also October 12's Nikkei: "EVERGRANDE's FINAL COUNTDOWN?"

And some thoughts on contagion and portents:

Sept. 8
"Evergrande Bonds Tumble After Report Of Technical Default; Contagion Slams China Property Market" (will the Federal Reserve have to help the Chinese?)

The problem with these situations is you don't know how deep the rot goes until the positions start to unwind. That's how a stupid (relatively) little family office, Archegos Capital, came close to causing serious problems, re-re-hypothecated collateral and 100:1 leverage in some of the positions meant no one was really aware of what would happen if the market for the collateral stopped ascending.

In the Evergrande case, if the mess gets into the trillions of US dollar equivalents, the Chinese may need more ammo than they posses to contain the fallout. Hence the question of Fed assistance.

Sept. 7
"Attention: The Black Swan In The Center Of Beijing's Tiananmen Square Meant Nothing, Please Go About Your Business".