Oriental foray in Morgan Stanley.

Chinese buyers have spent $29.2 billion acquiring foreign companies so far this year, while investors from the rest of the world have bought $21.5 billion of Chinese companies, according to Thomson Financial.

The latest being state-run China Investment Corp. -- a sovereign-wealth fund, essentially the government's money pile --has invested in Morgan Stanley (the $5 billion bailout) as much as 9.9% of the Wall Street giant.

With its capital injection from China Investment Corp., or CIC--the new government agency responsible for investing $200 billion of the country’s $1.4 trillion in foreign currency reserves--the one-way money flow from Wall Street has been reversed.

Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG received sizable help from Middle Eastern and Singaporean investors in recent weeks. Wall Street firm Bear Stearns Cos. agreed in October to swap $1 billion investments with China's Citic Securities Co.

China made its biggest overseas foray to date in October when its biggest bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., announced the purchase of a $5.6 billion stake in Africa's largest lender, South Africa's Standard Bank Group Ltd.

China has the money to spend because of its ballooning trade surplus with the rest of the world, as well as a local stock-market boom that has raised tens of billions of dollars for giant state-owned firms. China's foreign reserves rank as the world's largest at more than $1.4 trillion.

The terms of the Morgan Stanley deal guarantee CIC a 9% annual return, well above the fund's 5% cost of funding until it converts its investment to shares in 2010.

Tracking the Dow,Wednesday 19/12/07.
The bears reacted to the looming downgrades for bond insurers highlighted credit concerns.While the bulls reacted to the results of the Fed's $20 billion auction launched on Monday. The first of four auctions showed strong demand, as the central bank loaned $20 billion at 4.65 percent. That was slightly below the discount rate of 4.75 percent.At the final bell a dragonfly doji was seen hovering near the MAV and is likely to penetrate through the barrier.

The two (Santa & Santarina) powerful spinning bottom has formed the Morning Doji Star, a sheer sign of bullishness.Stock index futures and options and individual stock futures and options will all expire simultaneously this Friday.
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