China has been both the boon and the bane of my existence.
As a country, China's importance to the global economy is only growing, and its still-high GDP growth and need for raw materials has thus far been enough to keep the economic gerbil running on its wheel despite growing macroeconomic uncertainty.
In 2007 and 2008, buying into fast-growing Chinese companies was akin to buying an Internet company back in 2000 -- you could do no wrong. Growth prospects were high, results were handily coming in ahead of what few expectations existed on Wall Street, and forward earnings multiples were significantly lower than U.S.-based companies that were operating in the same sector. Things looked too good to be true from the start, and as I soon found out, they absolutely were.
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