China's Sovereign Wealth Fund Buys Financial Stocks As It Tries To Regain Investor Confidence

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Central Hujin Investment Ltd. a unit of China's sovereign wealth fund has bought shares of four Chinese state-owned banks according to government news agency Xinhua.

The four banks include Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Bank of China (BOC) and China Construction Bank (CCB). All shares were bought on the secondary market.

Beijing has clamped down on lending as it struggles to bring inflation within its 4% target. Tighter lending has created a near liquidity crisis, local government debt has mounted, PMI looks weak, and the stock market has been down this year. With a slowdown in the global economy and fears of a Chinese hard landing, many investors have fled China, and other emerging markets, for safe havens. 

The government already owns a majority of shares in the China's biggest banks. While it remains unclear whether it will continue to intervene, the government, through Hujin aims to stop the 30% decline in bank stocks in recent months, according to the Financial Times.

The move was aimed solely at restoring investor confidence. While the Shanghai Composite closed at its lowest level in over 2 years, bank stocks in Hong Kong spiked immediately on the news.

Don't Miss: Why Everyone Is Suddenly Freaking Out About China >

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Ballmer Spot-Checks Financial Analysts, Finds That 20% Are Using Paper (MSFT)

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When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer walks into a room to give a speech, he does a quick spot check to see what kind of computer everybody is using.

In the past, he's commented on people using Macs.

Today, in a room full of financial analysts, he saw that about 70% of them were using a notebook with a keyboard and mouse.

Only 10% were using a tablet.

His point was that the traditional PC market is far from dead, and Microsoft has to keep focusing on it, while at the same time extending Windows to work better on touch-screen tablets.

The most surprising part: 20% were using paper.

As Ballmer said, "hopefully paper is the one we can do most to get rid of."

People laughed, but he wasn't joking. "In a sense, there needs to be a lot of innovation before we have machines we're comfortable enough with so people are not using pencil and paper. That's a big opportunity.

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