more reasons to be bearish on exports *sigh

Here's why I'm becoming more bearish on Philippine mining and energy stocks for now, but still remaining bullish for long-term outlook.

To add to all the prophets of doom in the United States, we have a few things to be worried about here in Asia, particularly in China and Japan, that may affect our exports. Worry is a dead weight on market prices and there's plenty to go around. China and Japan have been known to gobble up minerals and what not from the Philippines. What hurts them, will hurt us. Even if it won't really, common-sense of an average trader will likely tell them so.

In China

Gordon Fairclough of the Asian Wall Street Journal wrote an article published today entitled: Winter Storms threaten China's Economy. Apparently the storms are pretty bad. People have been dying and power outages have been reported in 17 out of 34 provinces and regions. Many find themselves stranded at train stations. Houses have been destroyed. Xinhua estimates $3Billion in direct damages.

Add to this, the slowdown in coal production in China. We have lots of coal-fired powerplants.


In Japan

Japanese growth is reported to be likely to slow to 1% according to Takashi Nakamichi also of the Asian Wall Street Journal.

At home

UBS, a bank I've never really heard of, says our growth here in the Philippines will slow to 5%. I saw that sad note in the Inquirer yesterday.

Something to smile about

For a happier note at home, there's news of increased spending on Philippine Infrastructure. (not more weird islands on EDSA, i hope) That's something to add to our list of good fundamentals for the Philippines. (keep that multiplier effect rolling!)

Finally, my greatest reasons to be bullish on mining and energy is that our government's commitment to the mining and energy sector still appears to be solid. This, along with the fact that we have heaps of minerals in a world that remains hungry for more. Plain and simple.