I love China stocks as an investment … for the next few years, anyway. As I wrote recently, Chinese stocks are almost ridiculously cheap at current prices. Plus, the reorganization of the Chinese economy away from investment and export and into “Western-style” domestic consumption should create incredible opportunities for Chinese stocks, as well as for...Read More

The luxury sector has been in the headlines this week, though the outlook has been muddled.  High-end home goods retailer Williams-Sonoma (WSM) beat earnings estimates on Wednesday, initially sending shares higher.  Unfortunately, the details were a lot less impressive.  Overall, sales were up 12.3% and same-store sales were up 8.4%… but the retailer had to...Read More

If you are to believe U.S. politicians and talk radio hosts, China’s renminbi is managed by a sinister cabal of James Bond villains who intentionally suppress the value of the currency to give their manufacturers an advantage and to hollow-out U.S. manufacturing.   While that view of China’s ruling Communist Party isn’t completely fantastical, the...Read More

China made waves with a bad manufacturing report this week, sending world equities–and particularly Japanese equities–sharply lower. But the issues in Asia go beyond just exports and currency rates. It’s about plummeting birth rates and demographics, and what it means for Chinese and Japanese investments. Jeff Reeves of InvestorPlace.com and I talk things over. As...Read More

The past two years have been volatile for investors in virtually every market, but they have been particularly unkind to investors in China.  Chinese stocks, as measured by the iShares FTSE China 25 Index ETF (NYSE:$FXI) spent most of 2011 and 2012 in a downtrend, though in the past two months they have shown signs...Read More