Stocks News
- Stock bubble may burst: Greenspan
Date: 1-Nov-2007 Sources: (Shenzhen Daily)
FORMER U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said China's stock market may be a speculative bubble that will burst.
Asked if China was in a state of 'irrational exuberance,'' a phrase Greenspan made famous in 1996, Greenspan said, 'I think so,'' speaking to a conference of insurance executives in Boston yesterday. 'When you don't expect it, it breaks,'' Greenspan said of the bubble. His comments reprise remarks from May, when Greenspan said he was concerned Chinese equities might undergo a 'dramatic contraction'' after its main stock index at the time had jumped more than 90 percent since the start of the year.
Merchants Bank to grant stock rights
CHINA Merchants Bank Co. (Merchants Bank), the country's sixth-largest lender by assets, said yesterday it plans to grant its management team stock appreciation rights to boost competitiveness and strengthen the bank's governance.
The bank said it will give nine senior executives stock appreciation rights to a total of 1.29 million Hong Kong dollar-denominated H shares, or 0.0088 percent of the bank's existing equity. President Ma Weihua will get 300,000 H-share stock appreciation rights, and four vice presidents will get 150,000 each, Merchants Bank said. The rights come with an exercise price of HK$39.30 (US$5.10), the closing H-share price Tuesday, and can only be used after two years, the bank said. Unlike stock options, the holders of stock appreciation rights receive a cash amount equal to the premium of the market value of the shares above the exercise price, without having to pay the exercise price.
BoCom posts 62 percent rise in earnings
BANK of Communications (BoCom), China's fifth-largest lender by assets, said yesterday that its nine-month earnings rose about 62 percent, thanks to fast expansion on loans and fee-based income.
The Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed lender, in which HSBC Holdings Plc. owns 19 percent, posted a net profit of 14.57 billion yuan (US$1.95 billion) from January through September, it said. Excluding minority interests, net profit came to 14.486 billion yuan, the firm said in its statement. It earned 9.02 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier.
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