COVID in China this week: Optimists buy shares, pessimists buy lockdown supplies

“Hong Kong and mainland Chinese shares have bottomed out with China’s economy approaching a turning point,” said Hóng Hào 洪灝, the market analyst whose October 31 tweet about Beijing ending COVID-zero reopening in March 2023 helped juice a stock rally over the past three weeks. Meanwhile, Bloomberg says that a “bullish consensus for Chinese shares is emerging on Wall Street, with newfound optimism around” COVID-zero policy changes.

Indeed the government last week appeared to ease some virus-control restrictions for the tourism and entertainment industries:

• According to several directives issued by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism last Friday, capacity limits should be completely removed for large-scale entertainment venues such as theaters and for events such as concerts and music festivals in areas without COVID-19 outbreaks.
• In addition, the authorities ordered local administrators to “minimize the impact of COVID-19” on the tourism industry while protecting people’s safety and health.

But not everyone is convinced that things will get better: Small business owners in China are pessimistic about their fourth-quarter performance because of “sluggish demand and uncertainties around COVID-19 policies,” according to a survey by Peking University and Alibaba’s fintech affiliate Ant Group cited by Caixin. Foreign companies in China are nervous, too, as is JD.com, Alibaba’s major ecommerce competitor.

And COVID cases are spiking: Today China’s National Health Commission reported that two octogenarians died yesterday in Beijing from COVID, following the death of an 87-year-old man in the city on Saturday.

• China also reported around 26,000 locally transmitted new daily cases in Beijing for Sunday, as cases in other major cities also surge.