…the main topic of the week was undoubtedly the continuing disappointment from the demand side, underlined by the latest batches of macro, industrial output and investment data for October. The recovery looked for by many has not emerged, and several Chinese players reported cutbacks seen amongst fabricators, notably wirerod producers.
Growth views vary: On a scale of bearish to bullish we would broadly assemble the hierarchy as: Ex-China funds; cathode traders; China importers; China funds; China smelters; ex-China smelters; ex-China miners. Our rough straw poll had 2016 growth between -2% and +4%, with the negatives coming from funds, although interestingly Chinese participants tended to report expectations of low but still flat or positive 0–2% growth. Most (but not all) saw the weakest sector as construction and the strongest as power.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
