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Lingling Qi is about to take China by storm.

For the first time Chinese audiences will, from today, have an opportunity to hear in the original the immortal words: The names Bond. James Bond or Lingling Qi (007) as he is universally known in China.

Casino Royale, with the stars Daniel Craig and Eva Green and producer Barbara Broccoli on hand for the occasion, will be the first Bond film to be shown in China, with its premiere in Beijing tonight and opening to the public tomorrow. Given Chinese familiarity with Lingling Qi and the widespread discussion last year of the merits of his newest incarnation, the film is likely to be a huge box office hit.

Sony Pictures is distributing 470 prints, a record for a foreign film in China. It will outstrip even The Da Vinci Code, for which 390 prints went out across the country last year. Chinese audiences have already seen James Bond but only ever on the small screen at home and in often blurry pirated DVDs.

Chinas censors at last seem to feel that the new-image James Bond is acceptable to Chinese audiences. This is not a Bond locked in battle with Cold War enemies or a British spy taking on a third country. In 2002, for example, the authorities rejected Die Another Day, starring Pierce Bro-snan, because of its depiction of North Korea a close friend of Beijing as a haven for gangsters.

This time Sony Pictures started early the process of seeking approval and was able to convince Chinese officials that this was a new kind of Bond, one locked in fighting a common enemy: terrorists. Li Chow, the general manager of Sony Pictures in China, said: This Bond is a new beginning. He is not fighting a country and Chinese officials did not request any cuts. She said Chinese censors had not requested a single change even to scenes involving 007s legendary love-making skills or in which he is tortured.

Ms Li said that expectations would be high and she hoped that Chinese audiences familiar with 007 from pirated films would not be disappointed by the real thing. Sony even brought in experts to ensure that the Chinese dubbing pitched the tone just right particularly for the poker-play-ing jargon with which many may be unfamiliar since gambling is illegal in most of China. It hired two Chinese directors instead of the usual one to dub it into Mandarin, one for voices and the second for technical details.

Ms Li said: For gambling terms, and all that, its very difficult to translate. So sometimes we used a word that explained what was happening rather than use a gambling term.

For the first time, Chinese audiences will see an officially sub-titled film that allows Bonds famed introduction of himself to be properly translated. The film is to be shown on more than 1,000 screens nationwide and could be a real moneyspin-ner. Most of the profits, however, will accrue not to Sony but to Chinas state-owned distributor, which keeps most of the box office revenues.

Some people have already made profits from Casino Royale in China. Pirate versions many dubbed into Russian hit the streets in December. But most are of poor quality, and Ms Li is counting on Chinese audiences being willing to pay 5 for a ticket to see 007 on the big screen rather than settling for a 75p DVD.

Publicity for the film is nationwide. The studio has been advertising in newspapers and on television as well as outside cinemas. So popular is Lingling Qi that in the western city of Lanzhou, some cinemas were displaying hand-painted billboards of Daniel Craig.

Picture show

20 foreign film a year allowed in Chinese cinemas
1896 year motion pictures reached China
$737m Chinese film industry profits last year
$2bn box office profits alone by 2015

Source: News agencies, IT Facts, Associated Content

An Fed Open-Market Committee meeting typically creates more anxiety in the markets than Tuesday’s trade would suggest.

Ahead of Wednesday’s policy decision, major averages were resilient in the face of a massive rebound in oil and natural gas prices, as well as some disappointing earnings guidance from economic bellwethers UPS (UPS) and 3M (MMM) . Bonds reversed course and gained ground Tuesday, bucking a strong consumer confidence report and potential data land mines ahead, including Wednesday’s advanced fourth-quarter GDP report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to close at 12,523.31, while the S&P 500 jumped 0.6% to close at 1428.82. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3%, to close at 2448.64.

UPS spent most of the day down, trading as low as $70.38 intraday, but finished well off of its lows, down 1.3% at $72.70. The company’s full-year outlook fell short of analysts’ expectations, and the company blamed a slowing U.S. economy for the glum view. 3M fell 5.4% after its CEO said moderating global economic growth is responsible for its soft earnings guidance.

Procter & Gamble (PG) gave the market a strong earnings report and boosted is 2007 guidance, but its shares slipped 0.5% on the day. On the flip side, disability insurer UnumProvident’s (UNM) shares climbed 10.5% Tuesday on its strong earnings report and healthy guidance.

The government will release its fourth-quarter GDP estimate at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. The consensus expectation is for growth of 3%. The markets will also digest the fourth-quarter employment cost index Wednesday morning. Analysts expect a 1% increase from the third quarter, when wages were rising at the strongest annual rate since the second quarter of 2002.

As for the Fed, no change in rates is expected, but traders expect the policy statement will be more hawkish than those of recent meetings, mostly to acknowledge stronger fourth-quarter growth and signs of strength in the housing market.

Indeed, “if you take housing out of the equation, you have a booming economy, inflation running higher than the Fed’s ‘comfort zone,’ a strong consumer, wages pushing higher and unemployment running at full employment,” says Marc Pado, chief market analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. “Under those circumstances, the Fed will be scratching their head to find a reason not to raise rates.”

But raising the rhetoric won’t mean much to the markets unless the data also shock to the upside. A much-stronger-than-expected GDP or wage inflation report might suddenly make the Fed’s tone more meaningful.

As it stands, the market is not contemplating any move by the Fed through most of 2007. Just a month ago, traders were debating whether the Fed would cut rates in March or May. As of late Tuesday, the fed funds futures market prices in less than 50% odds of a single rate cut by the end of the year, according to Miller Tabak. Even minor odds of a rate hike — 4% in May — have crept into the market to really confuse things.

RBC Capital Market’s chief fixed-income strategist T.J. Marta says the Treasury market may have a “sell the rumor, buy the news” reaction to the Fed’s statement Wednesday. Last week, Treasury yields rose sharply as traders removed the “oh my God, we’re doing down view” from the table, he says. Rumors of a report in the market claiming inside information about a more hawkish FOMC statement means the market has already priced in the more aggressive statement, he adds.

The 10-year Treasury note ended the day up 5/32 to yield 4.87%. The 30-year bond rose 10/32 to yield 4.97%. Bond prices move inversely to yields.

Indeed, the Fed is still likely to reference worries about the housing market to justify its pause, even as it acknowledges some stabilization. Fears of what higher interest rates and adjustable-rate mortgage resets might do to the overall economy are still good enough reason for the Fed to tolerate a strong economy and slightly higher inflation.

“The Fed is on hold for the year,” says James Bianco, president of Bianco Research.

Housing and manufacturing were the weakest spots in the economy, and Bernanke and the Fed sees signs of stabilization in both.

The minutes from the Dec. 12 Fed meeting acknowledged that “there were some indications that home sales might be starting to stabilize,” and that “the adjustment of activity and prices in the housing market did not appear to have spilled over significantly to consumer spending.” Also, the only thing Bernanke said about the economy when he testified before the Senate Budget Committee earlier this month was that manufacturing is not hollowing out, particularly given the most recent industrial production data.

Fed officials of late have repeatedly mentioned the heightened threat of wage inflation, with unemployment at 4.50% and showing no signs of slipping. As San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen says, the labor market is “gangbusters.”

The FOMC statement Wednesday afternoon is likely to reflect these revelations, but the morning’s data are really where the potential surprises lie.

If you want emerging-market exposure that goes beyond owning one broad-based ETF or open-end fund, you need to be aware that not all emerging markets are the same.

Some rely on exporting consumer goods to the U.S., some on exporting commodities to China and similar countries. Some are obvious growth stories, like India and China, and some are smaller countries that have a lot going for them, but have growing pains.

Understanding those differences will be crucial the next time there is a nasty correction in this market segment.

For example, if all you owned in 1997 were southeast Asian countries, you got hit hard relative to the widespread emerging-market pain that went with the Asian contagion.

If you owned only current-account-deficit countries during the risk-aversion correction last spring, again, you felt more pain than those with a more diversified approach.

If all you own right now is Brazil and Russia, what do you think will happen if commodities endure a serious correction?

The chart below compares the Turkish market with iShares Singapore (EWS) . I have written about both Turkey and Singapore.

Turkey has numerous deficits; Singapore is one of the surplus countries. Turkey has inflation issues and high-teens short-term rates; Singapore’s rates are lower than ours, with scant inflation.

If you like Turkey, it is because of the country’s potential membership in the EU and its young and large population.

If you like Singapore, it is because it is less volatile than most emerging markets, has a well-managed economy and is growing exports.

The second chart compares the Singapore dollar with the Turkish lira. The point of this chart is to show how well the surplus currency did against the deficit country during last spring’s stress test.

That is a very big move. If there is ever a repeat of 1997, might the chart simply flip over?

These two countries appear to zig and zag against each other, which probably makes for good diversification. Turkey was the poster child for the risk-aversion correction last spring. That market went down hard and has stayed down. Singapore did go down, but it was only down for a month because the dynamics behind the correction had nothing to do with low-yielding currencies with surpluses.

It is assured that there will be some sort of emerging-market crisis in your investing lifetime, and chances are it will be like all the panics in the past. It will start in one country and take its neighbors or other similar countries down with it, causing some genuine pain.

That segment will feel it far worse than other emerging markets. If you have diversified emerging-market exposure, you don’t need to guess correctly about where that panic will come from, which makes managing your portfolio much easier to do.

Source: Google