China '04 Feels Like Nasdaq '99
Andrew Carpenter, a journeyman newspaper reporter, hasn't visited China. He has had only fleeting contact with any Chinese businessmen. Until recently, in fact, he never much thought about the place.
But that didn't stop him last fall from launching the China Club, an "investment alliance" he runs out of his Baltimore home. A two-year membership goes for $299 and includes a monthly newsletter, company research reports and investment seminars. He offers advice not only on China stock picking, but also points out opportunities in Chinese real estate and investments in private Chinese companies. In less than four months, he says, he has signed up more than 750 members.
"Dear Serious Investor," his Web site begins. "The fortunes made on the American stock markets in the late 1990s will look paltry when compared to the profit explosion that's set to blast out of China in the coming months....I intend to make you quite wealthy in the next two to three years."
China promoters such as Mr. Carpenter see a unique opportunity in America's budding stock-market fascination with the People's Republic of China -- and they're not about to let their inexperience with the Middle Kingdom slow them down.
U.S. newspapers and television airwaves are clogged with stories about China's rising prominence and locomotive economy. Chinese products flood American stores. And famously sage investors such as Warren Buffett -- whose company, Berkshire Hathaway, last year bought a stake in energy titan PetroChina -- are jumping on the Chinese investment bandwagon. So it's hardly surprising that many Americans are looking for their own piece of the Chinese growth miracle. Like Internet mania of the late '90s and other stock-market crazes before that, China's appeal lies in its seemingly boundless potential, a sense that something new has just been discovered -- and a fear that those who wait will get left behind.
LONG-RANGE ANALYSIS
He has yet to visit China. But last fall Andrew Carpenter, launched the China Club, an "investment alliance" that he runs out of his Baltimore home. On his Web site (thechinaclub.org) and in newsletters, he offers advice on investments in China.
In the last 14 months, Chinese companies made big profits on U.S. markets:
o Sohu.com up 2057%
o Sina up 1819%
o Qiao Xing up 700%
o Chinadotcom up 346%
o Netease up 1612%
o China Yuchai up 789%
o Chindex up 580%
Mr. Carpenter tends to focus on Chinese companies that fly below the radar screens of most Wall Street analysts. Some of his recommendations -- such as China Automotive Systems, Tiens Biotech Group and Yi Wan Group -- trade on the U.S. over-the-counter market. They aren't yet listed on any U.S. exchange and may not meet Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange listing standards. That also means analyst coverage is minimal to nonexistent.
Mr. Carpenter says his team of three researchers on the mainland, whom he met through contacts in the U.S., dig up information on companies Wall Street can't be bothered with. One Chinese researcher, he says, is a former TV business reporter in the southern boom town of Shenzhen; the other two are American businesspeople living in Shanghai and Beijing.
This whiff of hot tips appeals to China Club members. David Weaver, a 50-year old resident of Reading, Pa., who is in the real-estate business, recently bought 1,000 shares of China Automotive because "I want to get in on the ground floor," he says. "And he's got people in Asia, giving him these recommendations."
Mr. Weaver also bought shares of China Southern Airlines and Zindart, a maker of plastic, die-cast and paper products, based on tips from China Club. Like many nascent China investors, Mr. Weaver previously had never invested abroad. Now 20% of his savings are in China. The fact that most Chinese stocks have been surging over the past several months has only whetted his appetite for more. "I'm probably going to go to 50%" in China, he says.
If the stocks fall, the Securities and Exchange Commission says he'll have only himself to blame. The SEC doesn't regulate financial newsletters because, unlike professional investment advisers who tailor their suggestions to individual customers, people such as Mr. Carpenter offer the same guidance to all their readers.
Timothy Halter, who has run a financial consulting firm in Argyle, Texas, for 15 years, also has his sights set on promoting Chinese investments to individuals in the U.S. His first step, in October, was creating what he calls the USX China Index, which tracks the performance of 35 Chinese companies whose shares trade in the U.S. Later this year, he hopes to launch an investment fund based on his index, with shares that would trade on a U.S. exchange. He says more than 1,000 people have expressed interest in such a fund. "They tell me, 'If China is safe enough for Warren Buffett, it must be safe enough for me,' " he says.
And last year, Tom Bustamante, a 34-year-old entrepreneur in Manhattan, founded the Asian Investor, a research firm dedicated to "bridging the U.S. and Chinese," according to its Web site.
"One day, someone told me about Sina.com and Sohu.com, and I said, 'Oh my God!' " says Mr. Bustamante, referring to two Chinese Internet stocks whose share prices have tripled in recent months. "I realized that's the future."
Mr. Bustamante charges $199.95 for a year's membership. So far, his research consists of publicly available information, primarily from regulatory filings and news releases. He says it's too soon to discuss revenue but his Web site gets 1,200 separate hits a day.
Mr. Carpenter's guidance is already moving share prices of small Chinese stocks. Last month, he sent an e-mail alert to club members recommending purchase of Lingo Media, a little-known Toronto-based company that derives all its revenue from textbook sales in China. The next day, the shares doubled in price to 40 cents on the OTC Bulletin Board and trading volume soared to nearly one million shares after averaging around 30,000 daily. It is currently trading at 34 cents .
"I was amazed by the impact of his newsletter," said Michael Kraft, Lingo's chief executive, who credits Mr. Carpenter's e-mail for the price and volume spikes. Indeed, Mr. Kraft himself is a China Club member -- a fact Mr. Carpenter trumpeted to his readers.
About a week later on Feb. 3, Mr. Carpenter was at it again. "BUY, BUY, BUY and BUY some more" of Strategika, a Chinese biotech company that recently changed its name to Tiens Biotech Group, he told members. The stock jumped 39% the next day to $8.20 and last traded at $8.05.
Back in Baltimore, Mr. Carpenter pushes aside his salt-and-pepper hair as he types away on his computer. Five guitars lay scattered around the room and five cats scurry in and out. At 51 years old, Mr. Carpenter has written about politics, business and other topics for newspapers up and down the East Coast. Mr. Carpenter's personal investing had been confined to U.S. stocks, having only recently bought some of the Chinese stocks he recommends.
"The Elements of Style," a classic text on writing, lies on his desk. His television is tuned to a financial news program. But nothing in the room suggests any connection to the Far East. "Don't look for me to give you a grand insight into China," he says. "My opinion is as good as anyone else's."
中国－－梦回那斯达克1999
安德鲁?卡彭特(Andrew Carpenter)是位到处跑的报社记者，他还没有来过中国。他同一些中国商人只有过非常短暂的接触。事实上，不久前他连想都没想过这个地方。
但这并没有妨碍他去年秋天成立"中国俱乐部"，这是他在巴尔的摩的家外组成的一个"投资联盟会"。两年的会员费为299美元，这其中还包括一份月度新闻简报、公司研究报告和投资研讨会。他不仅提供中国股票选股方面的咨询，还帮助寻找中国房地产和中国私有公司领域的投资机会。他说，不到4个月，他的会员已超过750人。
他的网站如此致言道："亲爱的严肃投资者，相比未来几个月在中国将发掘出来的金山银山，1990年代末美国股市所产生的财富将显得微乎其微......我将让您在未来两到三年中十分富有。"
美国股市出现了一股疑迷中华人民共和国的潮流，像卡彭特这样的中国鼓吹者将之视为一个独一无二的机会，他们的发财冲动不会因对这个中央王国知之甚少而放缓。
现在，美国的报纸和电视都在对中国日益显著的地位和活力四射的经济进行大肆报导。中国产品潮水般涌入美国商店。著名的大师级投资者如沃伦?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)都纷纷来赶中国投资的这趟车，巴菲特旗下的Berkshire Hathaway公司去年就买进了能源巨企中国石油天然气股份有限公司(PetroChina)的股票。因此，很多美国人都试图在中国经济增长奇迹中开一条财路就没有什么让人觉得奇怪的了。就像上个世纪90年代末的互联网狂热和其他从前的股市风潮一样，中国的诱惑力就在于其看似没有止境的潜力，这好比刚刚发现了一个新大陆，人们担心在观望之际就已经落在了别人的后面。 到中国股票中淘金
他从未来过中国，但是去年秋天他创建了"中国俱乐部"。在他的网站thechinaclub.org和邮件中，他提供关于投资中国的建议。
过去14个月，在美国市场交易的中国公司股票涨幅惊人：
o 搜狐涨2057%
o 新浪涨1819%
o 侨兴电话涨700%
o 中华网涨346%
o 网易涨1612%
o 中国玉柴国际涨789%
o 美中互利涨580%
卡彭特试图专攻那些不在多数华尔街分析师视野之内的中国公司。他推荐的公司都在美国的柜台市场交易，如China Automotive Systems、Tiens Biotech Group和Yi Wan Group。他们还没有在美国的证券交易所挂牌，可能还达不到那斯达克或纽约证交所的上市标准。那也就意味著分析师很少或根本没有跟踪这些公司。
卡彭特说，他在中国大陆有三个研究人员，是他通过美国的熟人认识的，他们挖掘华尔街没心思去关注的那些公司的信息。他说，一位中国研究人员从前是中国南方新兴城市深圳的电视财经新闻记者；另外两人是生活在北京和上海的美国商人。 这个网站上的投资提示对中国俱乐部的会员很有吸引力。现年50岁的大卫?维佛尔(David Weaver)住在宾夕法尼亚州，他从事的是房地产业，最近他买了1,000股China Automotive的股票，因为他希望在低价买进赚钱。他说，'他（卡彭特）在亚洲有人为他提供这些推荐信息。'
根据中国俱乐部上的投资建议，维佛尔还买了中国南方航空公司(China Southern Airlines)以及塑料、模具和纸制品生产厂Zindart的股票。同很多刚入门的中国概念投资者一样，维佛尔从未有过海外投资。现在，他20%的储蓄都投资在了中国。中国股票过去几个月猛涨不已，这让维佛尔的胃口更大了。他说，'我可能会把50%的投资'放在中国。
如果这些股票下跌，美国证券交易委员会(Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC)会说，他咎由自取。SEC不负责监管金融新闻报导，因为与那些为个人客户提供特定咨询意见的专业投资咨询师不同，像卡彭特这样的人给所有读者提供的信息都是一样的。
帝莫斯?海特(Timothy Halter)在得克萨斯州Argule经营一家金融咨询公司已有15年的时间，他也开始开展向美国个人投资者推荐中国股票的业务。他在去年10月份编制了一个名为USX China Index的指数，跟踪在美国交易的35家中国公司的股票，他希望在今年晚些时候推出一个基于该指数的投资基金，该基金将在美国市场交易。他说，有超过1,000人已经表达了投资该基金的兴趣。他说，'他们告诉我，'如果巴菲特认为中国投资是安全的，那么对我们来说肯定没有问题。''
去年，曼哈顿34岁的企业家汤姆?巴斯塔曼特(Tom Bustamante)创建了研究机构Asian Investor，其网站声称，该研究机构将致力于'在美国和中国之间架起一座桥梁。'
巴斯塔曼特说，'一天，有个人对我讲了关于Sina.com和Sohu.com的事情。哦，我的天！我当即意识到未来系于此。' 这两只中国互联网股票的价格在最近几个月上涨了两倍。
巴斯塔曼特向每位会员收取199.95美元的年费。迄今为止，他的研究由公开信息组成，这些公开信息主要来自于监管机构公布的材料和公开报导。他说，现在谈论公司收入还为时尚早，但是他的网站每天都有1,200人访问。
卡彭特的投资建议已经开始影响中国小型股的股价。上月，他向会员发了一封邮件，建议购买Lingo Media股票，这是一家名不见经传的总部位于多伦多的公司，其全部收入来自于在中国销售课本。第二天，在场外交易公告牌市场交易的该股价格翻了一番，涨至40美分，成交量猛增至近100万股，而其以前日平均成交量仅在30,000股左右。目前该股价格为34美分。
Lingo首席执行长麦克尔?卡夫特(Michale Kraft)说，'我对他的这封信产生的影响感到吃惊。'卡夫特认为卡彭特的电子邮件造成了股价和成交量的飙升。实际上，卡夫特自己也是中国俱乐部的会员－－ 这一点卡朋特曾向他的网站大加吹嘘。
大约一周过后，2月3日，卡彭特再次上演了一番好戏。他告诉会员，'买进、买进、买进、买进更多'Strategika股票，这家中国生物科技公司最近更名为Tiens Biotech Group。第二天，这只股票暴涨了39%，至8.20美元，目前该股价格为8.05美元。
再回到巴尔的摩，卡彭特坐在电脑前，在打字的间隙他用手理了一下头发。在房间里散落著5把吉它，有5只猫不停的走来走去。51岁的卡彭特为报纸撰写关于美国东岸的政治、经济等话题。以前，他的私人投资一直局限于美国股票，只是在最近才购买了部分他推荐的股票。
在他的桌子上摆放著一本关于写作的经典书籍《风格的要素》。电视播放著一个财经新闻频道的节目。但是房间里没有任何东西能与远东扯上联系。他说，'不要指望我能给你关于中国的真知灼见，我的观点与其他人并无二样。'
(back)China: Why the Giant May Stumble
NEVER, IN OUR RECOLLECTION, has an emerging market economy "emerged" without hitting bumps along the way. The road that leads from an agricultural society with few financial institutions to a diversified manufacturing and industrial-based economy with rich capital markets is paved with pitfalls.
China is unlikely to be the first exception to this pattern. We have all been told many times about how important China has become to international commerce and to the market for U.S. Treasuries and other reserve assets. We all appreciate by now the risk of China's production mechanism severely faltering, or of a halt to capital flows into and out of China. Here, then, is a synopsis of how it all could go sour very fast in an emerging market -- and a list of symptoms to look for if China's massive economy gets sick.
The most important thing to remember about China is that it very much is an emerging economy, albeit a huge one. Yes, it is difficult to think of a $1.4 trillion economy as emerging. After all, it exported $440 billion worth of goods last year, consumed half the world's cement production, absorbed a third of the world's steel output and generated half the GDP growth on the planet. Numbers of this magnitude are usually reserved for G-7 economies.
However, the size of the economy should not be confused with its stage of development. China lacks both private capital goods and infrastructure -- roads, railways, power -- and thus is stuck well within its production-possibility frontier. The economy is largely dependent upon foreign inflows of fixed investment: Last year, foreign direct investment was almost one-half of the nation's entire economic growth. Finally, and most importantly, China lacks a deep capital market and stable financial-sector institutions.
These factors all explain why China's dependence on foreign capital inherently destabilizes its developing economy, more than such a dependence would in a developed market economy. The story starts with money: Consider what happens when foreign companies pump $54 billion worth of direct investment into the economy in a year. The foreigners bring dollars, yen and euros into China and convert them into yuan, which are spent on setting up factories and offices and equipping them. While some of the capital goods have to be imported, most of this money is spent on local goods, services and labor. The part of the money that is used for locally produced goods and services is called the domestic currency counterpart to the fixed foreign investment inflow. It is an increase in the money supply that, in China's case, is equal to 20% of the monetary base.
In a developed market economy, with developed capital markets, the central bank would view an inflow of foreign money of this order of magnitude as an undesirable increment to its money supply, big enough to distort the objectives of domestic monetary policy, whatever they may be. The central bank would mop up this excessive liquidity by selling bonds to the general public, removing the proceeds of those sales from the monetary base. If these open-market operations, as they are called, equal the amount of the undesired inflow of funds into the economy from overseas, then the central bank is said to have sterilized these inflows.
This sterilization trick does not work for an emerging market like China, where there is no developed capital market. (This is one reason we call it an emerging market, right?)
The central bank does not have enough private-sector bond investors to sell extra bonds to. In fact, it hardly has any domestic bond investors at all -- so the domestic currency counterpart cannot be sterilized. It increases the growth rate of China's money supply to a pace that is inconsistent with price stability. In short, a 20% jolt to the monetary base leaves a lot more money chasing around the economy than there are goods to buy. Either prices have to rise, starting an inflation process, or imports must become a vent for the excess demand caused by the rise in money, or both -- all because the central bank of China has lost control of the money supply to foreigners.
Foreigners may see rising inflation risks as unsettling, and cut back the pace of their investment spending sharply, or even postpone projects indefinitely. If the foreign direct investment flows seize up, GDP growth will be halved at once, and probably halted altogether when the secondary effects work themselves out. Imports for assembly and re-export -- where a country like China receives "bits and kits," say, of a Sony DVD player, has workers put them together to make finished DVD players and then ships them -- may halt, pulling a $400 billion importer of goods and services out of the market. China will cease to be an engine of growth for its regional economy and, to a lesser extent, the world economy. If domestic financial stability is threatened by all this, domestic businesses may falter too should inflation become severe, and the already shaky banking system could implode.
When foreign investors get really nervous, they try to take money out of a troubled economy. We saw this in the 1998 Asia crisis. When this happens, the money supply decreases and, once again, the central bank cannot sterilize the outflow of funds. If the withdrawals become substantial, the money supply will implode and the whole economy will stop. The central bank does not have the scope to control this monetary contraction in an emerging capital market.
This is not science fiction. Students of emerging markets have seen this kind of scenario occur over and over again in recent decades, most recently in the Asian economies in 1998. A variant of this process brought down the largest Latin American economies in the early 1980s. Just because China is huge and looks so wonderfully robust today -- and is sitting on a big pile of international reserves -- is no guarantee that things cannot sour quickly. Foreign currency reserves of $400 billion are huge in absolute terms, but they cover the import bill for only 10 months.
What signs of irregularity should an individual investor watch for in China's economic pulse? The easiest thing to monitor is inflation, a ready reckoner of excessive monetary growth in an emerging economy. When foreigners see inflation rise, offshore financial flows may slow or dry up. At last report, China's consumer-price index was 3.2% higher than it had been a year ago in December. This is not much inflation, but it is a big change from a year earlier when prices were actually falling. If inflation goes up by another four percentage points -- or more -- over the next year, foreigners may really start to get nervous. Money-supply growth, by the way, has moved up to 20% from 13% in mid-2002, when the inflows of foreign capital really took off. And, yes, foreign direct investment flows -- which had been running at a 60% year-over-year pace early in 2003 -- had dwindled to flat by the end of last year.
So even individual investors can monitor the writing on the wall. China surely will have a bump -- possibly a very big one, and possibly more than one -- as it moves through the development process. No emerging market economy is too big to fall.
ASIAN STOCKS RALLIED last week, with strong gains recorded by markets in Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Japan.
In Kuala Lumpur, shares closed 4.4% ahead of their level the previous week, helped by foreign buying of bank stocks like AMMB and RHB Capital. Indonesia's stock market hit a record high during the week, and finished up 2.6%, with prices buoyed by the government's sale of minority holdings in four private banks. In Taipei, strong interest in electronics shares moved prices ahead 1.7%, while moderate foreign interest in blue chips edged prices forward in Tokyo by 1.6%, in Singapore by 1.4%, and in Hong Kong by 1%. Markets in South Korea and the Philippines ended the week flat.
The worst performer of the week was Thailand, where rising concerns about the deadly avian-flu virus depressed stock prices by 4.4%.
中国经济并非固若金汤
在我们的记忆中，还没有哪个新兴市场经济体能够一帆风顺地就"脱颖而出"。从一个不存在什么金融机构的农业社会，走向建立在多种制造业和产业基础上、并具备发达的金融市场的经济体，需要走过一条充满坎坷的道路。
中国在这方面看来也不会例外。中国对国际商业以及美国国债等储蓄资产市场的重要性已是不言而喻。我们大家现在都清楚，如果中国的工业生产出现严重衰退，或即使短暂出现问题，那会对进出中国的资金带来何种程度的风险。这里探讨的是一个新兴市场国家的经济会怎样快速全面恶化，并且列出了中国经济出现问题时可能会表现出的症状。
谈到中国时，最需要铭记于心的是，尽管规模巨大，但它仍是一个新兴经济体。不错，很难想像一个国内生产总值达1.4万亿美元的国家会是一个新兴经济体。不管怎么说，中国去年出口了价值4,400亿美元的商品，消耗了当年全世界水泥产量的一半和钢铁产量的三分之一，对全球GDP增长的贡献率达到50%。如此巨大的经济规模足以和七大工业国相媲美。
不过，经济规模不应与发展阶段混为一谈。中国既缺乏私人资本产品，也缺乏公路、铁路和电厂等基础设施，这些都大大限制了中国的生产增长。中国经济在固定资产投资方面很大程度上依赖外资：中国去年几乎一半的经济增长是由外商直接投资创造的。最后，也是最重要的，中国缺乏成熟的金融市场和稳定的金融机构。
这些因素都说明，为什么中国这样一个发展中国家对外资的依赖不可避免地要危及其经济的稳定，而一个同样依赖外资的发达经济体却不会出现这种情况。这要从资金说起：想想外国公司每年将价值540亿美元的直接投资注入中国会产生什么后果。外国人将美元、日圆和欧元兑换成人民币，用于建造工厂和办公楼，并添置所需设备。虽然这类资本货物的一部分需要进口，但外商直接投资的大部分还是花在购买本地商品、服务和支付本地劳动力费用上了。这部分用于购买本地商品和服务的资金被称做外商固定资产投资的本地对应货币。就中国而言，这一因素导致的货币供应增量，已占到中国货币基础的20%。
在有著完善资本市场的发达国家，央行会将如此大规模的外资流入视为导致本国货币供应量不当增长的一个因素，无论该国的货币政策目标为何，都会因大规模的外资流入而产生扭曲。央行因此会通过向公众出售债券的方式回笼市场上的过量流动资金，从而起到降低货币基础规模的作用。如果这些所谓公开市场操作的规模等同于过多流入的那部分海外资金，那么央行就被认为已经化解了这部分外资流入所造成的不利影响。
但这个化解外资不利影响的方法在中国这样的新兴市场国家却并不适用，因为这类国家没有发达的资本市场。（这也就是我们将中国视为一个新兴市场国家的原因之一吧。）
在这类国家中，私人领域的债券投资者无法足以吸纳央行出售的过量债券。事实上，在这类国家很难找到国内债券投资者，因此外资流入导致的本地对应货币无法得到吸纳。这使得中国货币供应量的增速达到了将要危及物价稳定的程度。简而言之，本地对应货币占货币基础的20%左右，会使市场上的资金量显著高于可购买商品的价值。其结果是，要么物价上涨，从而引发通货膨胀，要么通过增加进口来满足货币供应量增长导致的额外需求，或者两种结果同时出现，所有这些都是因为中国央行对外资流入导致的货币供应量增长失去了控制。 不断加大的通货膨胀风险可能会引起外国投资者的不安，从而使他们大幅放慢投资中国的步伐，甚而至于无限期推迟投资项目的实施。如果外商直接投资锐减，中国的GDP增长率将立刻下降一半，而假如外商直接投资停顿的另一负面效果开始显现，那么中国这剩余的一半经济增长率也可能难保。通过将进口零部件加以组装然后再出口（如将索尼DVD播放器的零部件组装为成品，然后再输往国外），中国这类发展中国家得以赚取些许出口加工费，这类以再出口为目的的进口也有可能暂时中止，从而使价值4,000亿美元的进口商品和服务从市场上消失。中国将失去作为亚太地区经济增长发动机的作用，对世界经济而言，某种程度上也是如此。如果上述这些因素威胁到了中国的金融稳定，在通货膨胀严重的情况下，国内企业也会举步维艰，已经摇摇欲坠的金融体系有可能彻底崩溃。
当外国投资者真正感到恐慌时，他们会努力将资金撤出陷入经济困境的中国。这种情况在1998年亚洲金融危机时就曾出现。当这种情况发生时，货币供应量将会下降，而中央银行同样无法化解资金外流产生的影响。如果外资持续撤离中国，中国的货币供应将难以为继，整个经济将会停摆。在中国这样一个资本市场发育不成熟的国家，央行无力控制这种货币供应收缩的局面。
这不是科幻小说。近几十年来，这种情况在那些刚刚跨入新兴市场经济体门坎的国家曾反复出现，最近一次就是1998年的亚洲金融危机。上个世纪80年代初，这类危机搞垮了拉美最大几个经济体。仅仅因为中国经济规模巨大且经济增长如此强劲－－它还有规模可观的外汇储备－－尚不足以保证中国的情况不会迅速恶化。就绝对值而言，4,000亿美元的外汇储备不可谓不多，但它仅仅相当于中国10个月的进口额。
个人投资者应对中国经济的哪些反常迹象予以关注呢？最容易监测的是通货膨胀率，这是衡量一个新兴经济体是否出现货币供应量过度增长的现成指标。当外国投资者看到中国的通货膨胀率出现上涨时，他们可能减缓甚至停止对中国的投资。中国去年12月份的消费者价格指数较上年同期增长了3.2%。这还够不上通货膨胀，但较之上年同期物价实际上呈现下跌的局面，情况已有了很大改变。如果中国2004年的通货膨胀率达到7%以上，外国投资者可能就真的要开始紧张了。中国的货币供应量增速已从2002年年中的13%增加到20%，中国的外商直接投资正是从2002年中期起真正开始加速增长的，2003年初时的增速一度达到60%，但2003年全年的外商直接投资额仅与上一年持平。
这一现象甚至对个人投资者而言也是一目了然的。中国的发展道路肯定将有起伏，而且有可能是相当大的起伏，并且不会仅有一次。没有哪个新兴市场经济体因为其经济规模大就能避免遭遇挫折。
