Friday, January 05, 2007

From Wall Street To The Great Wall: How To Invest In China - Book Review

From Wall Street to the Great Wall: How to Invest in China





What Is It About?

As the title indicates this book is about investing in China. The book is divided into two sections. The first provides an overview of the economic history of China as well as current market forces at work, both internal and external. The second section provides a detailed road map on investing in China, from developing a strategy to analyzing specific markets. The author presents this material in a straight forward and easy to understand writing style.


What Did I Get Out Of It As A New Investor?

The book provides an interesting overview of China's economic history and its place in current world markets. The book makes several excellent points, key among them is that China is not a single homogeneous market but rather several distinct geographic and economic markets. Consequently, an investor must be careful not to assume a strong regional trend applies nationally throughout China.

Moreover, the book advocates that while the similarities of China's current growth are not identical to that of the United States during the nineteenth century, there are commonalities. These commonalities provide instruction regarding the challenges of investing in China and avoiding the pitfalls that befell foreign investors here in the United States when it too was an emerging market.


The Good News

The book presents a well balanced case for investing in China's growth potential. The book also does a good job providing information on how an investor can access the Chinese markets through various stock exchanges.


The Bad News

The book may convey that investing in China is a bit less risky than it actually is in reality. While the book advocates the use of ETF's or mutual funds as opposed to individual stocks for the uninitiated, new investors may not get the message. New investors should heed the author's warnings before rushing headlong into individual stock selection and assure they understand the risks investing in an emerging market.


The Bottom Line

This is a good book for a new investor who has interest in emerging markets in general and China specifically.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That book "Finding The Hot Spots" sounds interesting. Have you found it to be exciting?

Steven said...

yes, finding a hot spot is always exciting.

Anonymous said...

I agree!

I admire people who can write so well that you feel as though you are part of it all!

I appreciate all that you do...as I read vicariously through your reviews. You do an amazing job! Thank you for that, as I am learning a lot from you as well.

:)

QUALITY STOCKS UNDER 5 DOLLARS said...

Some chinese small cap stocks trading on nasdaq are great values.