Real estate or the stock market?

Not surprisingly, our Chinabiz-columnist Sam Crispin, clings to every sign the Shanghai stock market is ready for a crash. Sam makes a living in real estate and for that industry the recent six months have not been the best. While we cannot say that the real estate industry is falling flat - as has been predicted wrongly for years - things are also not going that well either.

Hundreds of thousands Chinese investors - and not only them - have been investing in the stock markets as that market has gone up since last year, despite an occasional dip. In his latest column Sam refers to an article in the South China Morning Post by independent economist Andy Xie, who predicts massive mayhem when the government does not cool the market down now. (Unfortunately, the South China Morning Post is hidden behind an outdated financial firewall, but if you look very well, you might find Xie's column here.)

Now, I'm not going to deny there is a bubble and, yes, a correction will come. But what I find strange is that the Chinese media present Andy Xie's story in a different way than the Hong Kong newspaper. In this summary of an interview Andy Xie gave for Phoenix TV we seen an element that would have messed up the argument for the South China Morning Post a bit: Xie says that despite the expected short-up correction, the Chinese stock markets will move upwards for the foreseeable future.

So, yes big problems, but when you prove to have a strong stomach, you might see it through. The difference in tone says more about the different media than about the real situation. The South China Morning Post still seems to love a decent doomsday scenario for China.