China boom to lift iron ore: yawn

Pantheon with the details of China’s rebounding PMIs.

China: Official Manufacturing PMI rose to 52.6 in February from 50.6 in January. Consensus was 50.6.
Official Non-Manufacturing PMI climbed to 56.3 in February from 54.4 in January. Consensus was 54.9.
Caixin Manufacturing PMI increased to 51.6 in February from 49.2. in January. Consensus was 50.7.

Today’s raft of economic data provide mixed signals about global demand, though overall more positive than a month ago. Both Chinese manufacturing PMIs registered strong new export orders, while the Japanese index worsened. The Korean export data helps to reconcile this, with falling shipments to China, but strong export growth to the U.S. and the E.U. We think the improvement in Chinese activity in its PMIs has not yet fed through into actual Korean exports to China, but it should do so in the next round of data.

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About the author

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.