The week ended with a spectacular Beijing Olympic 2008 opening ceremony held in the China’s National Stadium – known as the Bird’s Nest. The date chosen was also said to be very auspicious, Aug 8th 2008 or 08-08-08. Some 34.2 million viewers watched the Opening Ceremony, smashing the previous record of 27.3 million for NBC’s coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics from Sydney, Australia, according to Nielsen Media Research. The largest U.S. television audience for a Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony however was 39.77 million for the 1996 Atlanta Games.

China, known as the “Middle Kingdom” spent multi-billions of dollars to make the event one of the successful in the history of the Olympic Games. China’s GDP growth has been expanding on double-digit figures since 2003 and the fastest growing economy in the world is set to overtake Germany as the world’s third largest powerhouse this year. China’s reserves peaked at US$1.81 trillion as at end of June-2008 and this was one of the important tickets most Chinese stock speculators (or rather gamblers) believed would shield the country’s economy from a bubble burst – if there’s any. Even if the stock market were to crash, it would only happen months after the Beijing Olympic 2008 – goes the argument.

For the time being people are not talking about the stock market; which had consolidated since its peak but rather on the Olympic Games. Forget about Russia and other European countries because the race is between China and USA for the top place in terms of gold medals. China might have the advantage of home support but traditionally USA would warm-up at the early days and speed to the finish-line towards the closing of the games. China is also under pressure to deliver as many gold medals as possible and the country needs more than Yao Ming to emerge top on the overall medal count. A victory would be sweet and the kingdom hopes its 20 billion Yuan Bird’s Nest stadium could bring good fortune.

Not only the races are on between China and USA for the gold medals but the global oil prices are also on its race to reach $100 a barrel, at least that’s what many analysts were predicting. To achieve $100 a barrel of oil the U.S. dollar would need as much Viagra as possible. Oil prices dove to $115 a barrel on Friday with people screaming lower demand around the world and the belief that commodities may have peaked. Nevertheless many analysts are watching if the black gold would sustain below the crucial level of $117 a barrel for days or weeks to come.

On the local front, Anwar is also on the race to win the upcoming Permatang Pauh’s by-election. Former premier Mahathir doesn’t think the ruling government could wrest the seat from the de-facto opposition leader though. After denied the rumors that he might offers himself as an independent candidate for the by-election, Mahathir also said he might consider migrating to another country (to his buddy Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe?) if Anwar becomes the next Prime Minister of Malaysia. He might be sarcastic but if he was serious with his statement then he might believes that Anwar’s threat (of becoming the next PM) is a real one after all.

Dow Jones recorded another 300-points gain on Friday but KLCI might not make it accordingly. Maybe the ruling government should listen to Mahathir’s advice that the days of Malaysia being known as a low-cost labour country were over, and it is time for companies to pay higher wages to its employees *applause*. But the ruling government prefers to play racial cards and rumors are circulating that the Bar Council’s President Ambiga was in fact one of the actress assigned to ensure the controversial forum on “Conversion to Islam” attracted as much “attention” as possible *grin*. In the meantime it’s advisable to enjoy the Olympic Games than to monitor the local stocks movement.

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August 10th, 2008 by financetwitter

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