Greece and China will still set the pace

GREECE and China have undoubtedly dominated headlines for the past few weeks - the former because of its controversial referendum last week and its possible messy exit from the euro union, and the latter because of the amateurish manner in which regulators handled the country's stockmarket meltdown.

However, even though events in Europe and North Asia have played a major part in depressing prices here and should continue to occupy a pivotal role again in the days ahead, one can't help getting the feeling that they are simply diverting attention from the main feature - the deep, possibly structural problems plaguing the local stock market.

These have been well-documented so there's no need to delve into them again; suffice to say that it is very likely that institutional money is underweight the local market and has been for many months now.