Tag Archives: China

Stock Markets EM FX ended Friday on a firm note and capped off a mostly firmer week. MXN, KRW, and ZAR were the best performers last week, while CLP, CZK, and PLN were the worst. US jobs data was mixed, with markets focusing on weak average hourly earnings rather than on the strong NFP number. Still, the data did nothing to change market expectations for a 25 bp by the FOMC this month. Stock Markets Emerging Markets,...

China’s General Administration of Customs reported that Chinese exports to all other countries were in February 2018 an incredible 44.5% more than they were in February 2017. Such a massive growth rate coming now has served to intensify the economic boom narrative. A strengthening U.S. recovery is helping underpin China’s outlook as Asia’s biggest economy seeks to cut excess capacity and transition to reliance on...

For a very long time, they tried it “our” way. It isn’t working out so well for them any longer, so in one sense you can’t blame them for seeking answers elsewhere. It was a good run while it lasted. The big problem is that what “it” was wasn’t ever our way. Not really. The Chinese for decades followed not a free market paradigm but an orthodox Economics one. This is no trivial difference, as the latter is far more...

China’s official manufacturing Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) for February, compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, came in at 50.3, down from 51.3 in January and 51.6 in December 2017. This is the lowest reading of this gauge since October 2016. The Markit PMI (also known as the Caixin PMI), however, edged up slightly to 51.6 in February from 51.5 in...

Stock Markets EM FX ended Friday on a mixed note, capping off a largely softer week.  Best performers last week for MYR and TWD while the worst were ZAR and ARS. US stocks clawed back early losses and ended the week on a firmer note but we think further market turbulence is likely. Stock Markets Emerging Markets, March 03 Source: economist.com - Click to enlarge Malaysia Malaysia reports January...

Back in October, we noted the likely coming of two important distortions in global economic data. The first was here at home in the form of Mother Nature. The other was over in China where Communist officials were gathering as they always do in their five-year intervals. That meant, potentially: In the US our economic data for a few months at least will be on shaky ground due to the lingering economic impacts of severe...

The conventional interpretation of “reflation” in the second half of 2016 was that it was simply the opening act, the first step in the long-awaiting global recovery. That is what reflation technically means as distinct from recovery; something falls off, and to get back on track first there has to be acceleration to make up that lost difference. There was, to me anyway, a lot of Japan in it, even still if “globally...

In February 2013, the Chinese Golden Week fell late in the calendar. The year before, 2012, New Year was January 23rd, meaning that the entire Spring festival holiday was taken with the month of January. The following year, China’s New Year was placed on February 10, with the Golden Week taking up the entire middle month of February. For economic statistics, that meant extreme difficulty translating year-over-year...

US imports rocketed higher once again in December, according to just-released estimates from the Census Bureau. Since August 2017, the US economy has been adding foreign goods at an impressive pace. Year-over-year (SA), imports are up just 10.4% (only 9% unadjusted) but 9.3% was in just those last four months. For most of 2017, imports were flat and even lower. The question is, obviously, what has changed? Did the boom...

The chief development in the capital markets has been the sharp drop in equities after a significant rally since late last year and the rise in yields. The dollar had fallen alongside the exuberant appetite for risk assets. Anecdotal evidence supports the idea that the greenback was used as a funding currency to purchase those risk assets. The Dollar Index’s first weekly advance since the middle of last December amid...