Chinese Investment Advice?

[MElliottUK]

I have been following the developments of the Chinese markets and im interested in investing. My problem is im inexperienced at this sort of stuff.

If I wanted to invest is there a simple way to buy into the CSI 300 market without owning particular shares within a company. This will be in small amounts as I intend to use it as a learning curve.

Can anyone recommend simple but effective ways of investing, can it be done online?

I have a iii.co.uk account if that’s any use.

Any help and recommendations would be much appreciated.

[LeoSayer]

No help from me, but I thought exactly the same thing this morning after reading about yesterday's 6.5% drop in the chinese market!

There are plenty of unit trusts that you could buy from Gartmore, HSBC, Jupiter, Schroder etc etc.

[Malh001]

There are lots of places that you can invest in online through unit trusts, funds, etc. But be very wary. I have just cashed in my Asia investment fund as there has been alot of talk about the 'bubble' about to pop. The Chinese stock market has gone ballistic over the last few years and the government are taking steps to cool it down.

As they say 'do your own research'

[jamesw2000]

my advice is don't.

[g4ry13]

After such rapid growth in the market there's a lot of sentiment that the chinese market is due for a correction at some point. It's probably best to wait on the side-lines. Our market's pretty good - it may be more advisable to stay here for now, or even the US with the dollar so weak at the moment.

Could you not just spread-bet on the index instead?

Edited by g4ry13 on Thursday 31st May 13:37

[timmy33]

jamesw2000 said:

my advice is don't.

Unless you have giant balls and are really* in it for the long term, *by which I mean you will happily sit on a 30-60% loss for years, because you think that in 20 years time you'll have made a killing, and you can afford to forget about the money in the meantime.

[Fittster]

I think you have missed the boat (can't think of a slow boat to China joke ) . I just sold a Gartmore China fund which has done really well over the last couple of years but everybody is predicting impending meltdown so I jumped.

There are articles all over the place suggesting that the Chinese stock market is a bubble about to burst: http://www.moneyweek.com/file/30012/what-will-happ...

There are plenty more from different sources available if you do a search but they all pretty much say the same thing.

Edited by Fittster on Thursday 31st May 14:47

[limpsfield]

No one's got a crystal ball and people have been calling for the end of the Chinese bull run for some time - just as they have with US markets as the Dow powers out to fresh all time highs (again today).

Who knows how long is left but as mentioned above unit trusts, Exchange Traded Funds etc would be the way to do it. I don't know if any of the spread betters offer a market on the Chinese Index - but this is a higher risk approach due to margin so if you are risk averse disregard this idea.

[MElliottUK]

Thanks guys, yer i want to stay away from spread betting I'm far to inexperienced for that and i believe its very risky.

Funds are probably the way forward although yes i am aware of the news about the markets crashing, if they do i want to be in a position to set my fund up quick as in the long term china has to be a good investment.

Thanks again, if anyone can recommend some good performing funds i will look into them further.

Matt

[Fittster]

www.trustnet.com is a good place for information on funds.