China knows all about forecasting. For thousands of years the I Ching has provided the Chinese with clues about the future. Of course it's more about handling change than prediction and its advice to shipping investors today might be "the case is like that of sailing a boat; if you do not cross the stream at the proper time, you will destroy all the Cargo". "Crossing the stream" preoccupies every investor with ships on the spot market. We know things will change, and if we cannot predict the future, we can at least look for turbulence that might sink the ship. The Chinese steel industry has recently been showing signs of just that. Our graph shows Chinese steel production since 1995 in million tons a month. Until 2001 the river of steel flowed smoothly, increasing by 5-7 mtpy. Then suddenly it was a tidal wave.
展开▼
