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🌍 China's growth engine breaks - property bust plus bank runs

China's three growth drivers are failing at once: manufacturing growth fell from 25% y/y in 2008 to 6% in 2022, real-estate sales post their first-ever decline after rising from 250M sqm (2005) to 1.5B sqm (2021), and financial services (8% of the economy, $58T of assets) is levered to both. Frozen deposits at rural banks, tanks outside branches, and mortgage boycotts across 301 unfinished developments in 91 cities are the visible cracks - Sacks calls it China's 2008. Chinese equities and financials carry the cost.

0 CONVICTION
peaked 67.5 GREEN
EMBER
band · contested
▼ SHORT FXI
expression · bearish macro
PARTIAL
outcome · R +9.4% · α -6.9%
2023-07-22
window closed

⚖ Why this verdict

fully deterministic — evaluate.py replays this from daily closes; nothing below is editable or hand-set

  1. Window: 2022-07-22 → 2023-07-22 — first mention + 12-month horizon, then the window locks.
  2. The call: ▼ SHORT FXI (primary play). FXI fell 9.4% over the window → direction-adjusted R = +9.4% (the call made money).
  3. Benchmark: holding SPY over the same window returned +16.3%α = +9.4 − (+16.3) = -6.9% — what this call made or lost against just owning the index. This is the number the verdict uses.
    Stock-selection read: +25.7% — did FXI move the predicted way relative to the market. The two only differ on a SHORT: this call was right about direction relative to the index but still cost money versus holding it.
  4. Rule fired:
    · HIT — R ≥ +10% AND α ≥ +5
    ▶ PARTIAL — R ≥ +5% OR α ≥ 0
    · MISS — everything else
  5. Credit: supporters of a PARTIAL earn 0.5 each, opposers the inverse — this feeds the scoreboard weights. supported: Chamath, Jason, Sacks | opposed: Friedberg

Conviction timeline

bands: green ≥ 65 · watch ≥ 45 · ember ≥ 15

Plays vs SPY · % since first mention (2022-07-22)

Plays

expressionsymbolkindrelevancerationale
▼ SHORT FXIetf PRIMARY China large-cap, heavily weighted to the banks and property-linked names at the center of the crisis
▼ SHORT ASHRetf adjacent mainland A-shares, where the domestic property and banking exposure sits
▼ SHORT EWHetf adjacent Hong Kong equities are levered to mainland property and credit

Mention log

Friedberg
Friedberg macro w=0.93 · n=40 · E88 (2022-07-22) · explicit_prediction · strength 3 ▶ 53:57 SUPPORT
“So a lot of the conflict and the things that are starting to fall apart, which may just be the tip of the iceberg, is a function of a fundamentally slowing economy and the forecast and the outlook for an economy that doesn't have the drivers it's had historically.”
Sacks
Sacks macro w=1.12 · n=40 · E88 (2022-07-22) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 49:08 SUPPORT
“No, I think it's more like 2008, Jason. I think it's more like the financial crisis in 2008 that was driven by the real estate bubble. They've got their own real estate bubble, which is collapsing there.”
Jason
Jason macro w=1.27 · n=30 · E88 (2022-07-22) · sentiment · strength 2 ▶ 53:25 SUPPORT
“And these are regional banks, to be clear. This isn't the national banks. And so, at the same time, the mortgage boycotts are happening at 301 unfinished developments in 91 cities.”
Chamath
Chamath macro w=1.06 · n=47 · E106 (2022-12-03) · explicit_prediction · strength 2 ▶ 1:06:53 OPPOSE
“And it looks like they have decided that that's coming to an end, and they're going to, you know, deconstruct all of these things. So, you know, the Chinese growth engine is coming back.”
Friedberg
Friedberg macro w=0.93 · n=40 · E106 (2022-12-03) · sentiment · strength 1 ▶ 1:02:58 OPPOSE
“We always think that it's a linear line and that it's super dogmatic and fixed, but there's certainly responsiveness. And the release of the lockdowns in Guangzhou and Beijing this week seems to have been a pretty good indication that when things do get, when the tides do change, leadership there seems to respond, not always, but enough to kind of keep things going.”
Sacks
Sacks macro w=1.12 · n=40 · E131 (2023-06-02) · sentiment · strength 2 ▶ 50:07 SUPPORT
“China has real problems. There is no question about it. They have got demographic problems, they have got problems in the banking system, they have got a real estate bubble.”
Chamath
Chamath macro w=1.06 · n=47 · E136 (2023-07-09) · sentiment · strength 2 ▶ 37:31 SUPPORT
“China economically, I don't know where the demand is going to come from. You know, on the same time that their internal demand is imploding, they're creating all these export controls that I think are not going to actually help them solve the problem because it just accelerates Western economies' desire to delever from China.”

Who built this conviction

each voice's total force on the score — supports and opposes from every mention, weighted exactly as the replay applied them · share = % of all mention-driven movement

Sacks
Sacks w=1.12
2 scoring events · 47% of moves
+55.3 → net +55.3
Chamath
Chamath w=1.06
2 scoring events · 22% of moves
+13.1 / -12.8 → net +0.3
Friedberg
Friedberg w=0.93
2 scoring events · 17% of moves
+10.8 / -8.9 → net +1.9
Jason
Jason w=1.27
1 scoring event · 15% of moves
+17.3 → net +17.3

⏳ decay drained -44.8 over the idea's life — that's time passing, attributed to no one

Score events

episodekindΔafternote
E88 2022-07-22 init +39.4 39.4 E88 born by Sacks (explicit_prediction x2) [w=1.12]
E88 2022-07-22 reinforce +17.3 56.7 E88 Jason support x2 (new voice) [w=1.27]
E88 2022-07-22 reinforce +10.8 67.5 E88 Friedberg support x3 (new voice) [w=0.93]
E89 2022-07-29 decay -2.7 64.8 E89 silent
E90 2022-08-05 decay -2.6 62.2 E90 silent
E91 2022-08-13 decay -2.5 59.7 E91 silent
E92 2022-08-20 decay -2.4 57.3 E92 silent
E93 2022-08-26 decay -2.3 55.0 E93 silent
E94 2022-09-01 decay -2.2 52.8 E94 silent
E95 2022-09-10 decay -2.1 50.7 E95 silent
E96 2022-09-17 decay -2.0 48.7 E96 silent
E97 2022-09-23 decay -1.9 46.7 E97 silent
E98 2022-10-01 decay -1.9 44.9 E98 silent
E99 2022-10-07 decay -1.8 43.1 E99 silent
E100 2022-10-14 decay -1.7 41.3 E100 silent
E101 2022-10-22 decay -1.7 39.7 E101 silent
E102 2022-10-29 decay -1.6 38.1 E102 silent
E103 2022-11-05 decay -1.5 36.6 E103 silent
E105 2022-11-19 decay -1.5 35.1 E105 silent
E106 2022-12-03 oppose -8.9 26.2 E106 Friedberg opposes x1 [w=0.93]
E106 2022-12-03 oppose -12.8 13.5 E106 Chamath opposes x2 [w=1.06]
E107 2022-12-10 decay -0.5 12.9 E107 silent
E108 2022-12-16 decay -0.5 12.4 E108 silent
E109 2022-12-24 decay -0.5 11.9 E109 silent
E110 2023-01-06 decay -0.5 11.4 E110 silent
E111 2023-01-13 decay -0.5 11.0 E111 silent
E112 2023-01-20 decay -0.4 10.5 E112 silent
E113 2023-01-27 decay -0.4 10.1 E113 silent
E114 2023-02-04 decay -0.4 9.7 E114 silent
E115 2023-02-11 decay -0.4 9.3 E115 silent
E116 2023-02-17 decay -0.4 9.0 E116 silent
E118 2023-03-03 decay -0.4 8.6 E118 silent
E119 2023-03-11 decay -0.3 8.3 E119 silent
E120 2023-03-17 decay -0.3 7.9 E120 silent
E121 2023-03-24 decay -0.3 7.6 E121 silent
E122 2023-03-31 decay -0.3 7.3 E122 silent
E123 2023-04-07 decay -0.3 7.0 E123 silent
E124 2023-04-14 decay -0.3 6.7 E124 silent
E125 2023-04-21 decay -0.3 6.5 E125 silent
E126 2023-04-28 decay -0.3 6.2 E126 silent
E128 2023-05-12 decay -0.2 6.0 E128 silent
E129 2023-05-19 decay -0.2 5.7 E129 silent
E130 2023-05-26 decay -0.2 5.5 E130 silent
E131 2023-06-02 reinforce +15.9 21.4 E131 Sacks support x2 [w=1.12]
E132 2023-06-10 decay -0.9 20.6 E132 silent
E133 2023-06-16 decay -0.8 19.8 E133 silent
E134 2023-06-24 decay -0.8 19.0 E134 silent
E135 2023-07-01 decay -0.8 18.2 E135 silent
E136 2023-07-09 reinforce +13.1 31.3 E136 Chamath support x2 (flipped from oppose) [w=1.06]
E137 2023-07-14 decay -1.3 30.0 E137 silent