U.S. markets continued to show a muted recovery from fears of the coronavirus outbreak today. The Standard & Poor’s 500 closed up 0.31% after spending time in the early afternoon in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 0.43% and the NASDAQ Composite gained 0.26%. The Russell 2000 small cap index trailed as it has for much of this week, showing a 0.06% loss. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM) was lower at the close by 1.05%.
But tomorrow the Shanghai Stock Exchange will reopen after being closed for all of this week for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Chinese investors have been able to trade ADRs for big Chinese companies in New York this week and the Hong Kong market reopened yesterday.
But how will Chinese traders and investors react when they regain access to the full range of mainland stocks? Will they rush to sell to make up for what they haven’t been able to sell and to protect against future losses? Will they decide that the greatest danger is over and put in buy orders now that they have the opportunity?
I’d pay attention to some of the big purely domestic winners of 2019 and of 2020 before the virus outbreak.
For example, see what the trend is tomorrow in Meituan Dianping (MPNGF), which is still up 106.35% in the last 52-weeks but has fallen 15% from January 13 through January 30 in U.S. over-the-counter trading. (Meituan Dianping is a holding company that runs an e-commerce platform in the food ordering and delivery segment, one of the hottest trends in the Chinese stock market and economy.
Or what Kweichou Moutai, a Shanghai-listed company (600519.SS) that produces and sells aged, ordinary, low, and other Moutai liquor products. The stock is up 55.96% over the last 52 weeks but is down from its September 2019 high of 1241.61 by about 15%.
Or, finally, watch, Foshan Haitian Food and Flavoring (603288.SS), up 51.58% over the last 52-weeks, but which, at its January 23 pre-holiday close, was down 4.6% from its 2019 high.
Making “things” more complicated for anyone trying to figure out the trend, tomorrow is a Friday, so U.S. based investors and traders will have to decide whether to hold through the weekend with a possibility that it will bring new uncertainties.
