Capitalist Roader Fund: Going nowhere (Hold)

The SCI has peeked back up over 1,900 points again, but as the week ends, little has changed. A small glimmer of hope for our infrastructure play, Anhui Conch Cement (600585.SH) might be the news that bank lending was up 19% in December thanks to interest rate cuts and easier access to credit (so we’re told). The interesting part is that the lending seems to be directed at infrastructure projects. The long-awaited stimulus may finally be kicking in. Maybe.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 601398.SH, known around here as “that other one”) hasn’t done anything interesting since mid-September, when it momentarily went off the high dive before recovering. That’s frankly surprising, given that foreign investors – UBS, the Li Ka-shing Foundation, Bank of America, and Royal Bank of Scotland – have taken to dumping their Chinese bank H-shares. ICBC’s A-shares have sailed through it all unperturbed.

The fund is down 37.9% since June 3; the SCI is down 43.1%.