China’s property woes are coming to a head – so what happens now?

Chinese property giant Evergrande is in big trouble. And with no bailout plan yet, markets are getting nervy. John Stepek looks at how things might go from here, and how it affects you.

Evergrande building in China
Is Evergrande “China's Lehman Brothers”?
(Image credit: © Wang Gang / Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)

Before we get started this morning, I just wanted to let you know that early bird tickets for this year’s MoneyWeek conference are now available! Grab yours now! Given what’s going on in markets this very day, I think you’ll want to make sure you attend: here’s where to book.

So now onto the main topic – you might have noticed that markets were feeling a bit jittery last week. Turns out that they’re finally waking up to what’s going on with troubled Chinese property developer Evergrande.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.