Follow up on our HSBC call of October 12th:

Recent negative newsflow for HSBC (HSBA, 702p) is now mostly in the price.

‘The extent of the slowdown in the Chinese economy became clearer on Thursday when the government disclosed that the rate of increase of industrial production had dropped to the lowest level in seven years’ (Source- FT.com November 13th 2008).

The FT goes on to say ‘Four days after unveiling a massive fiscal stimulus programme, the government said that industrial production increased by 8.2 per cent in October – well below forecasts’.

I suspect that the market now knows much (if not all) of what the HSBC directors knew back in early October when they sold their shares (see followthedirectors comment of October 12th ‘ HSBC- Directors Sell- ‘Credit tightening’ now hitting China growth’).

In the four weeks since our October 12th comment, HSBC are down 10% while the FTSE 100 is up 9%.

For all our comments on HSBC click here.