Pick a few things to talk about.
First of all, the LPR announced early in the morning has not changed, and both the 1-year and 5-year terms remain the same.
The official explanation was that the current interest rate spread of banks is relatively small (about 1.5%), which is lower than the normal standard for bank profits. It will take some time to digest, but it did not say how long it will take. Bloomberg reported three consecutive reports of the decline in existing mortgage rates this month, each with more details than the last. This is definitely not made up. I believe it is true and I believe it will be implemented when the time is right.
But as I said last night, I think the communication mechanism between decision-makers and the market should be improved. Many of our financial media are now gradually losing the ability to link to the truth except for serving as loudspeakers. Many times some important information has to be exported and then disseminated domestically. This is not only unfair, but also not conducive to market stability.
For the same home loan, some people are paying an interest rate of 2.8%, while others are even paying more than 4.5%. This is the greatest unfairness. There is no doubt that families like the latter will raise all the family's cash flow to repay the loan in advance. All consumption and investment demands will be suppressed, which encourages people to deleverage.
I also have a 900 mortgage, and I have been paying monthly installments for 7 years, paying back more than 100 in principal and 250 in interest. I was willing to expand my leverage because of the high returns from financial management before, but the financial management market has taken a sharp turn for the worse in the past two years, and I don't want to do it anymore because I can't make any profit. My plan is to wait until the end of the year and repay the loan if there is no interest rate cut.
……
Kweichow Moutai, which fell below 1,300, announced its latest repurchase plan, planning to purchase 3-6 billion yuan of shares in the market and cancel them.
The intention of this move is obviously to maintain the stock price. Some people say that with Moutai's annual profit of 100 billion, it is not generous to only take out 3-6 billion for repurchase. Indeed, if you compare it with American technology companies, this repurchase rate is indeed too shabby. But Moutai has its own special situation. The company is located in a remote province, where local finances are tight and debts are in chaos. In the past two years, more than 80% of the bad news about local debts I have heard came from Yunnan and Guizhou.
As a pillar enterprise of the provincial state-owned assets, Moutai urgently needs to supplement local cash flow through dividends every year. The two to three billion yuan in cash dividends this year are not enough to spend, and it is difficult to ask listed companies to increase cash repurchases by a large proportion.
In fact, among A-share listed companies, Moutai is already a company with good business ethics. It actively returns to shareholders and has never had a dark history of harming small and medium-sized shareholders. The only small stain that I remember was that when the company's performance was good in the past few years, it tried to invest 800 million yuan to build roads and water plants in the local area. As a result, it was accused and sued by small and medium-sized shareholders, and the company later gave up.
I can understand this emotionally. There are 35 listed companies in Guizhou, and the remaining 34 companies combined are not even half the size of Moutai. The local government is heavily in debt, and so many poor relatives have only produced one promising enterprise, Moutai. According to our Chinese customs, if you don't help out, you will be criticized.
Therefore, it is impossible for Moutai to repurchase a large proportion of cash. 3-6 billion is already considered sincere. If I were to ask you, the company in China that has the most potential to imitate the US stock market in terms of repurchase is Tencent. Its business is huge and stable, and its cash flow is strong. It is possible to spend 100 billion yuan for repurchase every year.
However, before the major South African shareholder began to reduce his holdings, Tencent's willingness to actively repurchase was also very limited. Whether one has the ability and whether one is willing are two different things. I think the biggest positive energy of this round of bear market is that it has allowed a large number of listed companies to begin to reflect on and face up to the rights and interests of small and medium shareholders.
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Another big event today is that China and Japan have reached a new consensus on the issue of nuclear waste water discharge.
Simply put, Japan allows China to conduct independent sampling and testing, and China will gradually open up imports of Japanese aquatic products based on the test results.
Someone asked me if this was a gesture of goodwill after the death of the Japanese boy in Shenzhen. I said that I was overthinking it. Such an important negotiation could not be concluded within one day because of an emergency incident in the civil society. It must have been discussed almost before and the timing of the announcement was a coincidence.
Japan has been reluctant to allow China to independently take samples for testing, as it feels that this violates their sovereignty. However, China has always been Japan's largest importer of seafood, importing 3.3 billion yuan in 2022, but has directly dropped to zero since August 2023. Japan is trying to find a substitute for the US market, but Americans can't eat that much, so they will eventually have to negotiate with China.
Seafood is better from waters at higher latitudes. The water temperature in the tropics is high, and the fish and shrimp there are too big and have a strong taste. I can't get used to it. It has to be shipped from high-latitude waters. The fish and shrimp are not big in size but have delicious meat.
Oh, by the way, the second most searched article on Baidu today is the commentary article on Guancha.com, "People who raise the butcher knife to children are unforgivable", which is the correct orientation of a civilized society. As a public figure, I always avoid causing overly intense value confrontation, but in this matter, I hope to distinguish between black and white. If you support the murderer, please unfollow my account. I don't want to associate with such people.
