According to trader gossip, the global market rollercoaster triggered by China was considered so serious the International Monetary Fund emailed China’s central bank at the weekend to ask what was going on. The big joke was to profess surprise that the IMF had an email address — outsiders have to send faxes to the People’s Bank of China, even at the highest level.
How markets operate, and how financial authorities communicate, never really matters until it does— as the actions of the PBoC and China Securities Regulatory Commission, and China’s shortlived circuit breakers, have proved.
Calmer markets this week are giving investors and regulators alike a chance to regroup. They also give those who are not intimately involved in market plumbing an opportunity to familiarise themselves with forthcoming changes in the Hong Kong market, and with trading strategies that suit its particular mix of international investors and Chinese stocks.