Crashed Chinese data poses problems for recovery bulls

Friday, 17 April 2020

The headline numbers are terrible as expected. GDP fell 6.8% in the March quarter:

Ouput was clubbed wall-to-wall:

That’s not the problem. The issues arise in the March month partials. Industrial production was good at down 1.1%, fixed asset investment was terrible at -16% and, worst by a long way for recovery bulls, retail spending barely recovered at all at -19%:

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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.