The Contrarian Investor: Asia's black sheep

Asia’s black sheep

We may talk endlessly about the black swans of investing, but what about the black sheep of financial markets?

These poor unfortunate creatures have very few friends and are unloved by nearly everyone. Japan has been that asset class for much of my career, but China now looks ready to take up the tag. Even my beloved partner, who disdains all talk of finance and investment, recently informed me there was no way she would ever invest in China. “I do hope none of our pension money is in China, darling,” she declared, while I looked sheepish. The miasma of fear and despair surrounding Chinese equities takes in a number of concerns, not least the growing sense of panic about a local property bubbl...