Scavengers and scratchers of value
When Euromoney asked Hong Kong's brokers who is the most active fund manager in town, one resounding answer came back: "Joseph Yam, of course."
His price-keeping operation, designed to hurt those who were speculating against the Hong Kong dollar, saw a massive accumulation of local stock in a 10-day blitz in August.
When the central banker entered the market, the Hang Seng index was almost down to 6,500. As his buying spree wound up at the end of the month it was over 7,800. By that measure, the authority made a marked-to-market return over 10 days of 20%.
But of course, that's on paper only. Most of that gain was on the last day when the HKMA pumped HK$70 billion (US$9 billion) into a market where it was the only buyer. But at the beginning of September the Hong Kong government - which is the beneficial owner - could congratulate itself on having bought some very good assets at what looked like cheap prices.
Whether it will be able to off-load them for a profit is quite a different matter.
Mass nationalization
The only holding disclosed - for UK regulatory reasons - is that in HSBC.