China steel PMI firms

The China steel PMI is out today as well and has also firmed up a little:

	PMI	Output	New Orders	New export orders
Mar-15	43	39.2	45.3	44.1
Apr-15	48.2	49.4	49.4	40
May-15	42.4	40.7	37.6	43.7
Jun-15	37.4	34.2	27.9	50.7
Jul-15	41	41	36.6	56.1
Aug-15	44.7	47.5	39.9	54.5
Sep-15	43.7	44.6	40.7	40.7
Oct-15	42.2	43.1	37.5	37.9
Nov-15	37	35.4	29.7	41.2
Dec-15	40.6	38.5	40.9	47.8
Jan-16	46.7	45.6	49.9	50.7
Feb-16	49	49.5	50.9	46.2

And the chart:

There’s a bit of encouragement here especially in local new orders but I caution against reading too much into it. These expansions and slower contractions are coming off very low bases and the index is extremely volatile.

Still, better than more shrinkage.

Share

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.