Going nowhere fast. From Capital Economics: Massive external shock coming to smash it.

Via UBS: Jan-Feb activities plummeted, Q1 likely much weaker Jan-Feb economic activities were severely impacted by COVID-19 outbreak and related nationwide shutdowns. Industrial production declined by 13.5% y/y and some services have been hit hard as well. Work resumption is picking up but activities are not fully back to normal in March (see China Daily

It sure as hell ain’t v-shaped. U-shaped maybe. Probably L-shaped. Via Capital Economics: As expected, slow and halting and now at risk from the vast external shock: We’ll be damn lucky if Chinese growth doesn’t reverse into shutdown as well.

Rather, to lie about hitting it, via Global Times: Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), media have expressed concern over the Chinese economy. COVID-19 may impact the domestic economy, but its fundamentals will remain unchanged. The engines that drive the domestic economy are just as powerful before the outbreak. The country will not

So bad that the market has ignored it. Industrial production -13.5%, fixed asset investment -24.5% and retail -20.5%: The all-important fixed-asset investment collpased wall-to-wall: Real estate sales led the decline: Starts halved: Floor area under construciton is still up year to date but fell shaply to 2.9%: Finally, wait for it, steel output boomed: Leading

Via Capital Economics: Slow and halting.

Via Capital Economics: Steady progress.

Here’s the problem: And here’s the outcome, at Bloomie: In the first two months of this year, around 105 real estate firms issued bankruptcy filing statements, after almost 500 collapses in 2019, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “A vast number of mid- to small-sized developers will face a choice no one wants to make —

Charts from Capital Economics: Not exactly lighting it up for thr past few days. Links from Sinocism: China’s Inflation Slows as Coronavirus Locks Down Economy – Bloomberg Core consumer prices rose 1% in February from a year ago, the slowest pace since June 2010, and factory prices returned to deflation, with the producer price index

Via Capital Economics: Slow and halting and months to go even before the massive external shock bearing down.

The charts from Capital Economics: The worst chart may be the last one. It suggests that large swathes of Chinese migrant workers remain bunkered, meaning the supply side shock is nowhere near over. And the external shock is yet to come. China has roughly 2% of GDP ready to go for H2 simulus but it’ll

Charts from Captial Economics: Very slowly back to its knees and about to be thumped by a massive external shock. Links from Sinocism cast doubt on the great white hope of “massive stimulus”: The economy China stocks hit 2-year high on hopes of coronavirus-linked stimulus | Financial Times Despite widespread disruption to supply chains in

Via Caixin: Local companies and officials are fraudulently boosting electricity consumption and other metrics in order to meet tough new back-to-work targets as the spread of Covid-19 in China wanes, a Caixin investigation has found. As new coronavirus cases in China slowed in recent weeks, local governments in less-affected regions pushed companies and factories to

Via Caixin: February PMI data signalled the first reduction in business activity across China’s service sector on record due to restrictions implemented to contain the recent coronavirus outbreak. Firms across all sectors reported on the damaging effect that the virus was having on the economy via company closures and travel restrictions, with total new orders

More green shoots today:   Slowly but surely. Next comes the external shock. Links from Sinocism: 1. The outbreak China’s crisis wanes as epidemic takes hold in US, elsewhere – AP The health ministry announced just 125 new cases detected over the past 24 hours, China’s lowest number since Jan. 20. Another 31 deaths were

Via Goldman: The main game is now moving beyond China anyway but it’s ongoing struggles to revive are very clear.

More than green shoots. Normalcy: The rest of the big cities are the same. But public transport remains very subdued: Meanwhile, the number of Metro passengers was also on the rise, with 1.1 million people transported by 9am, 334,000 more than Monday last week, although still 63 percent less than on working Mondays before the

The latest charts show clearly that pandemic is loosed. China is OK: But everyone else is now stuffed: With cases doubling every three days: Korea is leading the testing push and so comes out way ahead in per capita terms. This makes everyone else a liar: It is still a winter virus so should burn