A backdoor way to invest in China is through some of Australia’s natural resource companies. Here is an interesting article about that booming business between the two countries.

“Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears,” said Robert W. Sarnoff. This is certainly the way it looked last week as the fall-out of the credit crisis deepened.

Markets had investors feeling dazed and confused after another roller-coaster week amid further evidence of the deteriorating health of the US financial sector and a renewed rise in oil prices. Adding to the pain, Barron’s Randall Forsyth said: “Now that the bear market has officially arrived, it may stick around and gnash its teeth for a while – until it’s scared away those who remain.”

Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac

…

We’d like to announce a new 12-page complimentary special report on Asian and Indian stocks, courtesy of our friends at Elliott Wave International.

Investment Opportunities for Asia’s Big 6 Markets will give you specific forecasts and valuable commentary …

Later today we should see evidence to back all that talk about our strong terms of trade and rising national income. For over three years now the Reserve Bank’s commodity price index has been telling the story of soaring prices and rising volumes and returns; with various federal and state governments and a host of companies in and servicing the resources sector feeding off the boom. Now later today we will see the May trade figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The optimists are forecasting the first surplus in around six years or more, and the cautious are saying a much smaller deficit, perhaps so tiny in the scheme of things to be not very meaningful. And, after the dramatic improvement in April, and with a further improvement in June, we could get a sharply lower current account deficit for the June quarter and one better than expected ...

Big miners drag down share market THE Australian share market was weaker at noon as losses in the resources sector continued to weigh, although banking stocks recovered. At 12 noon AEST, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 26.5 points to 5114.4 while the broader All Ordinaries shed 30.6 points to 5230.5. The September share price index futures contract was 20 points lower at 5118 on a volume of 20,255 contracts. During the morning, the S&P/ASX200 index had reached a low of 5060.6, close to its 2008 trough of 5039.60 reached on March 17. Macquarie Equities adviser Helen Spencer said banking stocks had recovered from their morning lows as investors took heart from increased confidence that the central bank was unlikely to raise interest rates again this year. “While the market pulling is down a bit because of resources, the financials have had a great result,” Ms Spencer said. “Talk about holding interest rates steady would also be ...

By Mike Caggeso Associate Editor Baosteel Group Corp., China’s largest steel producer, will pay $4.2 billion in cash for an 80% stake in a new Guangzhou-based steel mill that will merge two rivals, Shaoguan Iron & Steel Group and Guangzhou Iron & Steel Group. China is already the world’s top steel consumer and producer, churning out one-third of the global supply. This newly formed company, Guangdong Iron & Steel Group Corp., will boost Baosteel’s capacity by 33% to 40 million tons. Specifically, it will help supply steel-hungry Toyota Motor Corp. (ADR: TM) and Honda Motor Co. (ADR: HMC), both of which have plants in the city of Guangzhou. Baosteel also wants to build a new 10 million ton-capacity mill in Zhanjiang, Reuters reported. Story continues below…...

For the currency markets I follow, and every other financial market right now, inflation is the buzz word. Each and every new report of rising prices releases new concern — whether the threat is revealed in Brazil, the United States, Europe or even your local grocery store. No one likes forking over more cash this month than they did last month ... for anything. But this inconvenient fact is being increasingly realized across the world. And that's where currencies come into play. Currencies are the medium of exchange you use on a daily basis to purchase goods and services. And you depend on that purchasing power holding its value. Soaring inflation means, among other things, that the credibility of the legal tender in your wallet is being called into question. ...

Macquarie Bank runs a "wrap" product by which Australian retail investors can invest in a range of funds and have all their tax compliance done for them. The website describing this product is here. Customers naturally enough carry some cash. The cash has traditionally been managed in a AAA rated fund holding mostly government and quasi-government and other short-dated high rated securities. The Macquarie cash fund behaved quite well - unlike say Macquarie Fortress. But Macquarie has pulled a bait-and-switch. The attached newspaper article tells the story: http://business.smh.com.au/macquarie-finds-1b-under-nose-20080609-2o13.html I have repeated the first part of the article here for your edification: MACQUARIE GROUP just found a cool $1 billion under its bed to address the high price of debt - or actually, under the beds of pensioners and superannuation investors. With little fuss, Macquarie has converted the cash accounts of investors in its super manager and pension manager "wrap" investment ...

Joe Gutnick plans to list his Legend Mining in Australia. And THE AUSTRALIAN (News Corps orignal flagship newspaper) has taken his numbers at face as shown in this linked article.

Which leads to an interesting question: why bother paying stock shills USD2500 when the News Corp will take your adverts without payment?

The article of course makes it plain:

The company sees a local listing as logical, considering the operations will be based in Queensland.

But this would involve trading existing shares — there are no plans for any immediate capital raising here.

So Joe is going to flog existing shares in Legend to the Aussies. The $2500 stock shilling in my last post is the pump. The sale to Australian fund managers is - well a way of getting some cash into existing shareholder pockets.

Now Bronte Capital has always had the best interest of Australian Investors at heart. …

Joseph Gutnick - better known as Diamond Joe Gutnick - is a colourful charachter.

Here is a lovely profile from Forbes Magazine which in 1996 described his fortune and his (major player) status in Israeli politics.

In the article it was pretty clear that the relationships Diamond Joe had were mutually beneficial. Joe spent his money on conservative Israeli causes and famous conservative New York Rabbis and Israeli Prime Ministers promoted him and his stocks.

Joe’s fame does not end there. He was the target of a purported (but real) al-Qaeda assassination plot. Indeed his name turned up in the notebook of an al-Qaeda operative on trial in France as recently as last year.

I have to be careful about what I say about him though. He sues people so this will be a post lacking in colour. He famously sued Dow Jones (ie …