隨著中國疼痛蔓延，全球最大銀行股價跌至歷史低點

On 5^th August, 2019 Yahoo Finance reported the following:

Finance

World's Biggest Banks Sink to Record Lows as China Pain Spreads

Bloomberg  Bloomberg News,Bloomberg 13 hours ago

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China's big four banks (Source: Yahoo)

(Bloomberg) -- Stock investors have never been so downbeat on the world’s biggest banks. China’s “big four” state-owned lenders, which together control more than $14 trillion of assets, tumbled to record-low valuations on Monday amid mounting concern that Beijing will encourage them to bail out smaller peers. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, lost $11 billion of market value last week after injecting capital into a troubled regional bank as part of a government-orchestrated rescue.

Big Chinese lenders have long sacrificed profits in the name of national service, but that prospect has become increasingly worrying as pressure builds on their regional, city and rural peers. Smaller Chinese banks tracked by UBS Group AG need an estimated $349 billion of fresh capital -- a sum they may struggle to raise without support from the likes of ICBC. For shareholders already skittish about the trade war, rising corporate defaults and slowing economic growth, it’s yet another reason to sell.

“State-owned commercial banks are clearly suffering from the market impression that they will need to swallow other smaller and weaker banks, at least partially,’’ said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis SA in Hong Kong.

ICBC declined to comment. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and press officers at the country’s other mega-banks -- China Construction Bank Corp., Bank of China Ltd., and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. –- didn’t respond to requests for comment.

While the four firms have dominated China’s $40 trillion banking system for decades, they’ve been joined in recent years by a growing number of smaller banks, many of which funded themselves with opaque asset management products and interbank borrowing, instead of more stable consumer deposits. These smaller banks are now getting squeezed as regulators clamp down on risky funding methods and China’s economic slowdown causes bad loans to increase.

Their plight has been a major focus of investors since May, when Beijing surprised markets by seizing control of Baoshang Bank Co. in the first government takeover of a Chinese lender in two decades. That was followed two months later by a capital injection into Bank of Jinzhou Co. by ICBC and two other state-owned financial firms.

Analysts predict that more of China’s roughly 4,000 small lenders will run into trouble and that bigger banks will be asked to play a role in shoring them up. While regulators could in theory allow distressed lenders to fail, that outcome is seen as unlikely because of Beijing’s focus on maintaining financial stability. When authorities imposed losses on a small number of Baoshang Bank’s creditors, it triggered a mini-panic in inter-bank funding markets that only subsided after big cash injections from the central bank.

“The smaller banks, as they require the fire hose, will likely get rolled up into the bigger banks, where they can disappear,” said Christopher Balding, an associate professor at Fulbright University Vietnam who has written extensively on the Chinese economy and financial system.

Investors have responded by pummeling Hong Kong-listed shares of the big four, sending prices to record lows relative to book value, or net assets. The stocks traded on Monday at an average price-to-book ratio of 0.61, falling below a previous nadir reached in February 2016.

For investors with longer time horizons, it might be a good time to buy, said Terry Sun, a Hong Kong-based analyst at CMB International Securities Ltd. Chinese authorities are unlikely to force big banks to take on more than they can handle, according to Jim Stent, author of “China’s Banking Transformation.’’

“Even if you take some pretty severe assumptions on how many banks need to be taken over, you will likely find it’s scarcely a ripple on the profits and balance sheets of the big banks,’’ Stent said. The big four reported combined profits of $140 billion last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Katherine Lei, a Hong Kong-based analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., is less sanguine. In a report dated July 29, Lei said she was taking a more cautious view on Chinese bank shares, citing the overhang of troubled smaller lenders as well as rising corporate default risks and increased government pressure to give borrowers favorable interest rates to support economic growth.

“The cases of Baoshang and Jinzhou will unlikely be an end,’’ Lei wrote. “Large banks could be brought in to deal with potential small bank problems going forward.’’

Translation

（彭博社）  股票投資者對世界上最大的銀行從未如此悲觀。中國“四大”國有銀行共同控制著超過14萬億美元的資產，週一價值跌至創紀錄低位，因市場擔心北京將鼓勵他們紓困較小的同行。中國工商銀行股份有限公司是世界上資產規模最大的銀行，上週作為政府精心策劃的救援計劃的一部分，在向陷入困境的地區銀行注資，損失了110億美元的市值。

中國大型銀行長期以國家服務的名義犧牲了利潤，但隨著地區，城市和農村同行的壓力增大，這種前景變得越來越令人擔憂。瑞銀集團（UBS Group AG）追踪的規模較小的中資銀行估計需要3490億美元的新資金 - 如果沒有中國工商銀行的支持，他們可能難以籌集資金。對於已經對貿易戰，公司違約率上升, 和經濟增長放緩感到不安的股東來說，這是要出售它的另一個原因。

香港Natixis SA亞太區首席經濟學家Alicia Garcia Herrero表示，“國有商業銀行顯然正面臨做成一些市場印象，即他們需要吞下其他規模較小且較弱的銀行，至少部分是這樣。”

工行拒絕置評。中國銀行業和保險監督管理委員會, 以及該國其他大型銀行 -- 中國建設銀行股份有限公司，中國銀行股份有限公司和中國農業銀行股份有限公司的新聞官員均對置評請求不作回應。

雖然這四家公司幾十年來一直主導著中國40萬億美元的銀行系統，但近年來規模較小的銀行越來越多加入了，他們其中許多是通過不透明的資產管理產品和同業拆借來獲得資金，而不是依靠更穩定的消費者存款。 。由於監管機構限制有風險融的資方式，中國經濟放緩導致不良貸款增加，這些規模較小的銀行現在受到擠壓。

自5月份以來，他們的困境一直是投資者關注的主要焦點，當時北京令市場感到意外 -- 二十年來首次由政府收購包商銀行, 並且接管控制權。兩個月後，中國工商銀行和另外兩家國有金融公司向錦州銀行注資。

分析師預測，中國大約4000家小型銀行將面臨更多麻煩，並且將要求更大的銀行去發揮作用支持它們。雖然監管機構理論上可以讓陷入困境的貸款人違約，但由於北京方面的重點是維持金融穩定，因此這種結果被視為不太可能。如當局對少數寶商銀行的債權人造成損失，是會引發了銀行間融資市場的小恐慌，只有在中央銀行大量現金注入後恐慌才會消退。

 富布賴特大學越南的Christopher Balding副教授說“較小的銀行，因為他們需要滅火，可能會被捲進入更大的銀行，在那裡他們可以消失”，他曾撰寫了大量有關中國經濟和金融體系的文章。

投資者通過對四大香港上市股票作出回應，將其價格相對於賬面價值或淨資產降至歷史低點。這些股票週一交易的平均價格與賬面比率為0.61，低於2016年2月達到的最低點。

CMB國際證券有限公司（CMB International Securities Ltd.）駐香港的分析師特里•孫（Terry Sun）表示，對於投資時間較長的投資者來說，如今可能是一個購買的好時機。 “中國銀行業轉型” 一書的作者吉姆斯坦特認為中國當局不太可能強迫大銀行承擔超出他們能夠承受的責任。

“即使你對需要接管多少銀行採取了一些非常極端的假設，你也可能會發現它幾乎不會對大銀行的利潤和資產負債表產生影響，”斯坦特說。根據彭博彙編的數據，四大巨頭去年的總利潤為1400億美元。

摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase＆Co。）駐香港分析師凱瑟琳•雷（Katherine Lei）不太樂觀。在7月29日的一份報告中，雷表示，她對中國銀行股的態度更為謹慎，理由是陷入困境的小型銀行存在問題，企業違約風險上升, 以及政府施加壓力要求借款人提供優惠利率以支持經濟增長。

“包商和錦州之類的案件不太可能就始結束，”雷寫道。 “大型銀行可能被繼續引進入來應對潛在的小銀行問題。”

Comments

     So, the four big Chinese banks will be too important to fall. In a way we can say that all banks in China are save to deposit with money as they are guaranteed by the Government. Another point I note is that while the big Chinese banks have long sacrificed their profits in the name of national service, could this also happen in Hauwei in that the company may be asked to do something which could risk it business interests (e.g. hurting the company’s reputation or trustworthiness) for the Chinese government in the name of national interest. It seems that the US government has such a worry.

 In 2017 China has passed the National Intelligence Law which states that "any organization and citizen should support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work in accordance with the law."