lt cap,

Thanks for posting your ALU activity. Most likely, I will give into temptation to buy here in the 3.30's as that would be my lowest-cost shares. Of course, doesn't need to be said that we are in uncharted territory with the EU, and there's plenty of reason to believe things will get worse before they get better - if they get better :-)  

On China, I had read a really good article on bbc.news.com yesterday on the Chinese market situation. I believe it is, as you pointed out quite some time ago, one 'now visible' manifestation of the huge debt problem China has, which has (at least to my readings) been given scant attenton in the mainstream financial press to date. I recommend that bbc article (probaby still available, was as of yesterday) highly - as you know, I still haven't solved to problem of how I can cut and paste links into my posts.

(For those who don't want to bother with searching the story) As you note, one danger is that consumption would plummet, esp. given that about 80% of stock on the Chinese exchange is traded by individuals, unlike our stock markets. The 1/3 haircut in 3 months is alarming and has wiped out a huge amount of capital. Servicing the huge debt that Chinese firms have acquired as the result of explosive build-out suddenly now seems vulnerable,  as (this is my thought) the idea of 'growing' their way out of debt is now in doubt. (Obviously, tied to a prophesized decline in China's goal of getting domestic consumer support for its economy. On the other hand, the size of the Chinese stock market is quite small, comparatively, so the damage would not be as great as in Western markets by far. But the trashing of worth of the common folk that have been investing in that market makes the 'emergency' government action to shore things up as much a political/social move by the govt. as it is economically based or more. I haven't really thought out what the consequences might be that, as the same time the Chinese debt is becoming a visible problem, I think they still are the largest holder of US Treasury bonds. Perhaps that is a differential between Chinese company debt and govt. assets - I'd need to think it through more thoroughly and do some research.

In other issues, it's interesting to see a breakdown of who owns Greece's debt. Of course, Germany tops the list at about 63blm, and Merkel seems as tired as anyone of pouring cash down a rabbit hole. The US, surprisingly to me, holds about 11bln, about the same as the UK. I thought we were less involved. I wonder who 'owns' the US debt. Such figures may be skewed by the fact that there are entitiles that are not strictly individual countries' debt that own some of the debt, and that's co-mingled with entities that are apportioned by individual contries as a breakdown of the aggregate. In any case, it may be that the size of the debt is not all that humongous - perhaps it is the whole idea of indigent nations playing a game of 'chicken' with their creditors. I cannot understand why Tsipras seems to have a constant smirk on his face in the news videos I've seen. I'd have thought that he would've countered with less egregious proposals to the EU after the 'no' vote. Or maybe he'll do so at the '15th hour. Or perhaps weed is legal in Greece - I don't know about that. Whatever is giving him the 'jollies' in this situation, I'd like some of that.

Lastly, maybe it is a misreading, but it seems to me that optical networkers (ALU, CIEN, INFN) as a sector seems to have fallen greater than other sector stocks in this mini-meltdown. I haven't seen any, and can't think of any rationale of why they would be beat up any more than the general market. Given the long term growth that must occur in this sector, it's simply a puzzle to me.