China's stock market has put up a dismal performance for sometime now.
And the government's efforts to curb speculation in real estate has left many wealthy Chinese investors with few places to park their money.
This caused many investors to starting spending money on some really interesting assets. Most recently concerns have grown about a walnut bubble.
We put together a list of eight peculiar things that wealthy Chinese people invest an exorbitant amount of money in.
Walnuts
Price: $10,000+
Walnuts used to be the preserve of the emperors and extremely wealthy but were dismissed during the cultural revolution. Recently however they've become an avenue of investment.
Walnuts that cost 350 yuan ($56) 10 years ago, now cost as much as tens of thousands of dollars. And walnuts with carvings, or ones that are hundreds of years old are more expensive.
Some believe that the government is happy to ignore the walnut bubble since they aren't essential goods and rising walnut prices won't affect politics, unlike say food inflation or rising property prices
Source: Reuters
Racing-pigeons
Price: $324,000 - $648,000
Wealthy Chinese have been spending as much as €250,000 (about $324,000) on racing-pigeons and prices are expected to go up to about €500,000 ($648,000). Speculators have been blamed for the sudden surge in prices.
Chinese owners of racing-pigeons also favor foreign birds, and Belgian-bred pigeons are considered to be the best.
Source: The Economist
Jade
Price: $100,000+
An ounce of jade could cost $3,000 in China, in 2010, ten times as much as it cost in 2000, and more expensive than gold. Bracelets and figurines could easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As the Chinese government reined in speculation in real estate and with few places to hide black money, Chinese have chosen to invest in assets like jade. But jade prices have been dropping since the slowdown and many fear the jade bubble is going to burst.
Source: The New York Times / China Daily
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