Investors looking for bargains have a tough job in developed markets. The number of super-cheap deep-value stocks, taking no account of risk, has tumbled to the lowest level since before the rescue of Greece in May 2010, according to Société Générale analysts.
Over in China there is no such problem. The nine Chinese banks listed in Hong Kong all trade at a multiple of less than six times expected earnings and half trade below book value. If you think that sounds like a steal, look to the mainland’s stock exchanges: all but two of the dual-listed banks are even cheaper in their mainland-traded A-shares than the Hong Kong-listed H shares.
The same goes for Chinese dual-listed stocks in general. Mainland-listed shares, hard for foreigners to access, have since September sporadically traded at a discount to the same companies listed in Hong Kong and are now at their biggest discount since just before the H shares started a five-month, 30 per cent plunge in February.