Are Chinese bears shi**ing in the woods?

The weather here is less than sparkling at the moment. No great joy being on the bike when a light rain is falling and the roads are slippery. Still, I got out and had some time to think about a call I had from a mate in HK yesterday. Why does the Shanghai A-Share Index trade at a discount to the H-Share discount at the moment? Where have all the onshore China bulls gone? Here's the charts:

I year chart

6 month chart

Clearly this happens from time to time and I have always been of the school that considers it a phenomenon of the capital controls between the two jurisdictions, but is it true this time? I don't have a particular answer to this one, but I'm looking for research that tells me I shouldn't be putting the trade on right now. Perhaps a little technical for some, but well worth considering a spot of bottom fishing.

Not all is right with China and the effects can be seen in the Iron Ore price which is back to where it was a month ago. Of course the 119 print v. the September low of 89 was a pretty reasonable rally and very supportive of the AUD. Keep an eye on the rally never made a lot of sense to me and I'm guessing a period back in the 90's is likely in the next few months. Rio Tinto, the world’s second largest iron ore miner is hosting a seminar in Sydney about the commodity. If any readers of the blog can get me in to hear their views I'd appreciate it and can offer a test ride on the Pinarello as a reward.

I'm making this short today as I've been dealing with Swiss bureaucracy for part of the day. When you leave Switzerland you naturally go to Swisscom and tell them you're going and you want to cut off their services and pay them. Well the catch is that they won't accept payment there and then, in fact they won't even collate everything on one bill, instead the gnomes of Berne send you separate accounts for pay TV, mobiles and fixed lines. If you're like me this can be confusing and failure to pay has them magically charging you a penalty fee of a couple of hundred francs. It's absolutely ridiculous. Then there's Zurich Insurance who automatically renew any policies you have at the end of each year. This of course happens no matter what you said to them before you left, so yesterday I got a mail forwarded to me saying they had sent the police around to collect the premium for the home insurance policy (which renewed on 1 September in my case), but I wasn't at home. Jeezus - really? It's just nuts as I have a string of emails between myself and my Zurich Insurance agent telling him I'd left and providing him with the "holy of holies" the official "Attestation"from the Canton of Geneva stating that I had paid all my taxes and was free to go. Oh my . . . .

No wonder I look for solace from my bikes. Riding makes a lot of this junk go away. So I got out the freshly cleaned Pinarello and hit the streets. I'm going to resolve to use the BMC around town for a shopping bike when I'm not taking friends out. As such I'm going to change the Shimano 105 triple to a compact double and add some FSA handle bars and stem to trim some weight off her. And I'm going to attempt the change myself, including cabling and handlebar wrapping. You've got to learn sometime - right?

Ciao!