Box-Office Record, EV Graveyards and China Woes: Saturday Asia Briefing

When the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies. Or so it seems in China, where box-office records were broken in a week that saw the government step in to stabilize markets as faith in the country’s economy plunged.

The latest box-office data show that China’s consumers are still spending on in-person activities such as movies and restaurants despite holding back on big-ticket items amid a shadow banking crisis, a property selloff, and deteriorating investor confidence.

The Asian nation that everyone had expected to revive the global post-Covid economy is now seen as one of the world’s major risk factors. And global stock managers are concerned the selloff in Chinese shares could spread to Europe, the US and other parts of Asia, whose businesses look to China for growth.