China Stocks Prove Mortal

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Chinese stocks can't go up forever, right?

That's how I started last week's column. After all, I had spent the pastfewweeks chronicling how Chinese companies were dominating the weekly lists of the market's biggest winners on the different stateside exchanges.

Well, gravity came a-knocking this past week. Let's go over some of the biggest losers on the American Stock Exchange over the past five trading days.

	Last Week's Loss
China Architectural Engineering (AMEX: RCH)	(31%)
China Shenghuo (AMEX: KUN)	(29%)
Man Sang Holdings (AMEX: MHJ)	(20%)
Tiens Biotech (AMEX: TBV)	(18%)
China Direct (AMEX: CDS)	(16%)

Add it all up and you'll find that five of the six biggest losers on the Amex last week were Chinese companies (including the Florida-based China Direct, which specializes in Chinese business consulting).

This doesn't mean that the bull run is over. Despite the global market weakness, you still had a few companies, like online video game leader NetEase.com (Nasdaq: NTES), post healthy advances during the week. In fact, one of the two closed-end funds that I recommended last week -- Greater China Fund (NYSE: GCH) -- came through with a positive week.

Greater China Fund trades at a deep 16% discount to its net asset value. That's narrower than the 20% discount it traded at a week ago, but it's still an attractive alternative to get more bang for your yuan compared with buying into China through conventional open-end funds.

It's obvious China's gains over the past few years are unlikely to keep going forever. This past week may have been a taste of what can happen. There also is no lack of pessimism among many of my Foolish colleagues lately as they write articles like:

• Get Out of China While You Still Can
• Buffett Sells China
• LDK Gets KO'd

Still, the market can't be ignored. The country's economic power is growing too quickly. Sure, there are plenty of cases where stock valuations have gotten out of hand, but the unreasonable markups are far from universal.

I'll keep watching this space because it bears watching, even if this past week was a painful one to watch over.

So here's a tip of the hat to the market-thumping Chinese stocks recommended in not only the Global Gains newsletter, but also other Fool growth stock newsletter services like Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Stock Advisor. Take a 30-day risk-free trial to any of the Fool's newsletters by clicking here.

Let's see which way this new trading week takes us.