The Bulldog Report: I Trust Fortune Cookies more than I do Chinese Website -source PicksThatMove.com

June 22, 2010 - PRLog -- Calgary, Alberta –PicksThatMove is pleased to bring investors special situation stocks which have a high potential for price appreciation.  These companies have interesting business models and they have to execute on the business development level to bring value to shareholders.  Some of our past picks had soared over 200%.  To view some of our profiled stocks, please visit our website at www.picksthatmove.com

While the value of the Chinese Yuan is usually about as real as that thing stitched to Donald Trump’s scalp, the weekend wrought what sounded like good news from Beijing. On Saturday, the People’s Bank of China used its website to announce a ‘decision’ to allow for a more flexible currency exchange. Stocks and currencies around the world are up this morning as a result.  

I wouldn’t count your dumplings yet, though. And the intelligent investor should be cautious. The message coming from Beijing is vague, noncommittal and the kind of cheap political ploy I’ve come to expect from the Chinese Government. With the G20 coming up in Toronto this weekend (the Bulldog will be in town for the networking of course), the timing of China’s move is an obvious attempt to deflect attention from its currency manipulations. Comrade Obama, his Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and the cronies on Capitol Hill have all been making it increasingly clear recently that China’s exchange rate regime is growing tiresome.  With the heat on, China’s little web posting is a crafty, calculated manoeuvre that will likely make it a hell of lot harder for everyone at the G20 to do China bashing.  

Because let’s be clear here; despite its online innuendos, the People’s Bank of China has explicitly ruled out a one-time revaluation in the near future, claiming there’s no basis for ‘large-scale appreciation’ and kept the Yuan’s 0.5% trading band unchanged. And since 2008 and the onset of recession, the People’s Bank of China has been staunchly committed to buying and selling currencies (mostly US dollars) to ensure the Yuan hits its target of CNY6.83 to US$1.

Currency analysts and economists speculate that China’s vitriolic tinkering have kept the Yuan undervalued anywhere from 25% to 40%. This makes exports a hell of a lot more enticing and gives China a huge competitive advantage in global markets. And like most things that aren’t a product of a free market, China’s manipulations cause massive headaches for the rest of the world. According to Financial Historian Niall Ferguson, ‘A heavily undervalued Yuan is the key financial distortion in the world economy today’.

Regardless, I don’t expect to see the Yuan’s value change much in the near future. China’s currency policy is excessively selfish, and like the glutton at a business lunch who eats more than his share of oysters, it’s not sitting well with everyone else at the table. Something has to be done, but it doesn’t look like Obama or his henchmen have the guts.  Things might self-destruct in Beijing though. Over lunch in Hong Kong last week with an old friend from Harvard, I got a tip that things might be getting scrappy in nation’s capital. Every bloated bureaucracy has its conflicting interests and it looks like the ones in China just might be bubbling to light; The central bank wants a floating Yuan, while the Ministry of Commerce is determined to keep the country’s exporters fat on a devalued currency. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Either way, China still gets a wag of the finger.

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