Like the demise of Enron Corp. and the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the debacle at China Evergrande Group was inevitable to some only in retrospect.
As recently as June 8, analysts at JPMorgan Chase upgraded their rating on the shares of the world’s most indebted developer to overweight from neutral. "Sales of Evergrande should improve, which should remove concerns among investors,” they wrote.
While this might be among some of the most embarrassing calls, the JPMorgan Chase team was far from alone. Investors all over the world kept betting on China even as markets in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong lagged the developed world. JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on its analysts’ Evergrande call.
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