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Ben Kwok

Golden week shows deep pockets in the mainland
How much did the booming mainland stock market fuel private consumption during golden week?
Here is one  metric to consider. According to debit card figures from China Unionpay, there were nearly 99.2 million transactions  in the six days to October 6, totalling  58.7 billion yuan   - a record 74 per cent surge  from a year earlier.
Transactions on National Day broke the single-day record at 10.79 billion yuan.
Outside  the mainland, purchases  totalled 1.31 billion yuan, with 413,000 transactions last week. Impressive as that seems, it equates to only one yuan per  person for the entire population.
Richest of the rich
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the richest of them all?
Tomorrow  the Hurun Report will release the new rich-list in  the mainland and an explosion of newly minted  tycoons is expected.
Some mainland financial websites forecast the number of super rich - those whose net worth exceeds 800 million yuan - will grow to 800 from 500.
Last year, the richest woman, Cheung Yan, founder of Nine Dragons Paper (Holdings),  was reported to have a net worth of 27 billion yuan. This year, that figure would lucky to make it into the top 10  list.
However, the mainland's richest person could well be a woman again. Country Garden Holdings  major shareholder Yang Huiyan saw the company's market cap close yesterday at HK$213.33 billion.
Musical chairs
Who doesn't like Chinese music these days?
That is perhaps the reason Morgan Stanley has underwritten two of cellist Yo Yo Ma's (above)  concerts for clients in Hong Kong and Beijing this week.
Last night, Morgan Stanley organised a private concert for  more than 200 of its clients at the Grand Hyatt and the tickets, we were told, were gone faster than its sponsored initial public offerings.
Scaling great heights
As it benefits from a daily market turnover exceeding HK$150 billion,  how high will Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing shares go?
Legislator Chim Pui-chung expects the music will not stop for HKEx.
'HKEx is such a good monopoly,' said Mr Chim at a luncheon with reporters. 'There were six casino [licences] in Macau but there is only one in Hong Kong.'
Mr Chim expects the Hang Seng Index  to break 33,000 by Lunar New Year. Until then, HKEx may  live up to its stock code (0388) with a target price of HK$388. The shares closed yesterday at HK$247.60, a staggering 197.5 per cent gain so far this year.
Better late than never
Late is better than never for Donald Tsang Yam-kuen.
Last week, legislator Chim Pui-chung disclosed that he had not received a greeting card or even a text message from our chief executive during his cancer treatment. Yesterday, he showed reporters a copy of Mr Tsang's belated greeting letter.
The  letter said Mr Tsang had been busy with public duties since their last meeting in May but promised to get together  after his policy address.
Our verdict: we put a 'sell' on Donald's poor PR handling but expect to upgrade that after the promised gathering.
A tidy profit
We now gather that United States investment guru Warren Buffett  has cashed out more than  HK$10 billion  in PetroChina shares.
According to his latest disclosure to  Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, Mr Buffett sold 66.6 million shares  at about  HK$12 each on September 21. That brings to 842.9 million the total number of shares he has sold in the company since July.
Since dumping his first block of shares at HK$12.44 each  on July 12,  the Sage of Omaha has been left with a balance of 1.47 billion shares,  a 6.97 per cent stake.
His entry cost four years ago was about HK$3.8 billion.



Lai See