China Economic Milestone
November 14, 2007
Investors around the globe are realizing that China is becoming one of the major economic players and they (the investors) are putting their money where their reasoning is.
A recent fact stood out:
More of the largest companies are now Chinese. In fact, ten of the world’s biggest companies are now firmly owned by the Chinese and not the United States.
Here some facts:
The China based company, China Life Insurance Co. has moved ahead of the US based AT&T Inc. in market value. This leap occurred on October 29. 5 of the top 10 companies in the world are owned by the Chinese, compared to 3 that are owned by America.
U.S.-based Exxon Mobil still holds the top honors with a staggering valuation of nearly $525 billion. General Electric and Microsoft are the other companies still in the top ten.
This represents a historic change for both the US and for China. It was just back at the end of 1999 that the US owned 7 of the 10 top global companies. One Germany company, and two Japanese companies, rounded out the top ten field. At that same time, the US owned fourteen of the top twenty companies globally.
The Chinese domestic stock market is one reason for this increase. The Chinese CSI 300 Index has gained more than 170 percent this year alone, while the US-based Standard and Poor’s Index has gained less than 9 percent.
On the surface this seems like good news for the Chinese, but there are many experts who believe that this rate of increase in the Chinese markets cannot last. It is a bubble getting ready to burst wide open. Time will tell