All the news you need in one place. Updated throughout the day.
August 7
Good evening everyone. Largely thanks to this morning’s rumored RMB 2 trillion market injection, Chinese equities finished the day on a high note with the Shanghai Index rising 2.3% and the Shenzhen Composite jumping 3%. Hong Kong seemed to have joined in the fun as well, with the Hang Seng Index finishing the session up 0.7%. Machinery and mining shares meanwhile helped the Nikkei climb 0.3% after trading lower for most of the day. Here’s what else you need to know:
China cracks down on former top CSRC official. No, this isn’t related to the market rout. Li Liang, the former head of the investor protection department at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), was found to have taken bribes and abused his position during an investigation. Reuters
Liquidity in the Chinese markets is drying up. With trading rules already constricting buying and selling, foreign investment via the Shanghai-Hong Kong connect is slowly coming to a halt, raising concerns over liquidity in the region. WSJ (paywall)
Wolves in sheep’s clothing. Foreign hedge funds and prop traders are reportedly masquerading as physical commodity traders in China – and apparently they’re in the hundreds. Reuters
Seriously, how much did Beijing spend? The debate over how much money the plunge protection team tapped continues to rage on. Personally, I’m going with “a lot.” FT Alphaville (paywall)
North Korea will have a new time zone. Because “wicked Japanese imperialists” deprived “Korea of even its standard time,” Pyongyang decided that it will turn back the clocks by 30 minutes on August 15, thereby returning the nation to it’s original time zone. Yeah, that’ll teach Japan. BBC News
BOJ stands pat. As expected, the Bank of Japan stood pat on stimulus today as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda remains optimistic that inflation, as well as the economy, will pick up pretty soon without the aid of more easing. Reuters / BOJ
CRSC gets a ho-hum debut. China Railway Signal & Communication’s IPO – without a doubt the largest offering since the market rout – saw its shares trade in tight range today, disappointing some people who were expecting a little bit more fireworks. CNBC
Samsung C&T buys back $576 million worth of its own shares. Samsung C&T recently announced that it will be buying back 11.7 million of its own shares under South Korea’s “putback” program, and among the sellers is Elliott Management, who is reportedly selling a 4.95% stake in the company. As previously reported, South Korean law allows shareholders who vote against a merger to sell back their shares to the company as long as they’ve held it before the agreement. Financial Times (paywall)
Shell to sell 75% stake in Tongyi oil lubricants. And the winning bidders were: the Carlyle Group and Tongyi founder Huo Zhenxiang. How much Shell will be making from the deal however was not revealed. WSJ (paywall)
U.S. jobless claims rise less than expected. Last week’s U.S. jobless claims came in at 270,000, higher than the 267,000 number from the week before but still less than the 272,000 figure economists had expected. All eyes however are on tomorrow’s non-farm payrolls report. Financial Times (paywall)
NBC: Russia hacked the Pentagon. Allegedly. Their target appeared to be the Pentagon’s Joint Staff unclassified email system, which was promptly shut down for two weeks following the intrusion. The “sophisticated cyberattack” reportedly affected 4,000 military and civilian personnel working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. CNBC (video)
China Railway Signal & Communication (CRSC) shares to debut today. The first multi-billion dollar listing since the market rout will be held today as CRSC – the world’s largest railway traffic control systems maker – finally debuts its shares in Hong Kong. SCMP (paywall)
Photo: Wilfredo Rodriguez