Via Capital Economics:
• The latest PMI readings suggest that growth slowed last month. The breakdown points toward weaker exports, though it’s too soon to know if this is due to US tariffs or simply the result of cooling global growth. Meanwhile, a jump in the construction PMI suggests that fiscal easing may be gaining traction.
• The official manufacturing PMI declined last month, from 51.3 to 50.8. Meanwhile, the Caixin index, generally a better guide to cyclical trends, dropped from 50.6 to 50.0. In theory, 50 is the line that separates expansion from contraction. But in practice, the latest reading points toward a slowdown in annualised growth on the China Activity Proxy, our in-house alternative to GDP, to around 5%. (See Chart 1.)
