China data dump better than last month, but still bad

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Housing Construction

The glass one-third full interpretation of China stats out yesterday is that November wasn’t as dire as October. Which is true. New housing starts were up 14% from October to November. But they were still down 22% on last November. 20% vs 2019 or 2018. The trajectory is not good:

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Fixed Asset Investment

Looking worse than housing. Down 4.6% vs last year, worse than October. Although this area is more likely to see government intervention:

Housing, infrastructure and manufacturing investment all weakened in November
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Retail Sales

Weaker than October at +3.9%.

Others

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Unemployment ticked up. Industrial production ticked up to 3.8% from 3.5% the year earlier.

It is possible that the Chinese government will ride to the rescue with a massive stimulus. That is not looking likely at the moment. It looks more like they are aiming at enough stimulus to prevent an outright crash, but that is all.