"The just president called. He ordered people to immediately stop selling stocks."

Photo above - Pepe, is that you? Contrary to popular belief, you can still buy and sell livestock like this at Chinese wet markets. What you CANNOT do, however, is sell your investments in Chinese stocks. Lunar new year is coming up soon. Avoid the holiday rush and order your bats, cats, frogs, dogs and snakes now.

Sorry for the alarm. It’s not President Biden halting stock sales. That would be President Xi of China. As a new year's gift, his economic ministers rang up Chinese stock brokerages to “suggest” they stop selling stock shares. (see link below).

What a bang up way to start the new year. And two days ago China tried to sever the main data cable between Taiwan and the rest of the civilized world. Is this a brainstorm they had after watching Russia?

How much can you lose if the government says “stop selling stocks”? I guess it depends on how fast those share prices fall. If NOBODY is actually allowed to sell stock, then prices won’t go down. But that means nobody can buy either. There would be nothing for sale. But when I checked earlier today there were sales and purchases in the CSI300 index (China's version of the S&P 500). Someone is being naughty.

Looking back, it hasn’t been a good couple of years for the CSI300. The index is down from it’s 2021 high of 6,000 to 3,800 today. Damn - it lost 33%! How did the American S&P 500 do? Coincidentally it ROSE from 3,800 in 2021 to 6,000 today. WTH!!!

International economics stories are of little interest to Americans, or course. If you go to Yahoo Finance you get plenty of AI written stuff about how the S&P was up 20% in both 2023 and 2024. When we DO hear about China, it’s usually a threat to dethrone the dollar from it’s position as planet Earth’s favorite currency. And replace it with the yuan (Mao's picture is on every bill). Or to invade Taiwan. Or blow up everyone else’s satellites. Or flood the world with cheap EVs. Or a new train that goes 380 miles per hour. And . . .

Well, you get the idea. Chinese state sponsored trolls aren't likely to be promoting the new "buy now, sell never" stock market rule. Would you like a repost of the "dark side of the moon lunar rocks" story from 2024 instead?

China may very well have - and do - all those things. But Beijing doesn't have a market based economy. You can’t buy or sell stuff unless XI says so. So, you better watch out! He's checking on everyone's online use all the time.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Exclusive: Chinese exchanges ask big fund managers to restrict stock selling | Reuters