China Economy

From the AFR: Prices of newly built Chinese homes rose by as much as 15.5 per cent over the last year, defying government efforts to rein in speculation.

  By Leith van Onselen As noted earlier today by Houses & Holes, Fitch Ratings agency over the weekend issued one of the starkest warnings yet over China’s credit bubble, which it described as “unprecended in modern world history”.

Late Friday, ANZ issued a warning that the Chinese financial system is exhibiting signs of considerable stress: Onshore liquidity conditions have tightened in the past few weeks, despite of PBoC’s continuous liquidity injection.

Exclusively from Michael Pettis’ newsletter: The big worry I have had over the past year is that as China moves to rebalance its economy away from its over-reliance on its investment, with the accompanying investment misallocation, the economy will slow much more quickly than even the reformers expected, so scaring Beijing into backtracking.

Cross-posted from the East Asia Forum.

Over the weekend China released its May data dump and the news is good if you’re looking to see a Chinese rebalancing and bad if you’re Australian.

HSBC has just released both its May composite PMI and services PMI for the Chinese economy.

From Bloomberg today: Beijing, which already has China’s strictest real estate curbs, is being forced to take additional steps to contain surging home prices as demands for record-high down payments fail to deter buyers.

Cross-posted from Kate Mackenzie at FTAlphaville.

China’s non-manufacturing PMI for May is out and registered a tiny .2  fall to 54.1.

Late last week, Society Generale published a succinct note explaining its view of why China’s credit growth is accelerating but its growth is not.

The media got very excited by the China’s May PMI over the weekend because it came in above its depressed expectations at 50.8.

Cross-posted from Kate Mackenzie at FTAlphaville.

By Leith van Onselen Just in, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly lowered its Chinese growth forecasts for the second time in six weeks.

China’s industrial firms total profits for April are up 11.4 per cent from the same period a year ago.

China’s May Flash PMI is out and the bad news keeps rolling with it sliding back into recessionary territory at 49.6 versus expected of 50.4.

By Leith van Onselen China’s ghost cities, the most famous of which is Ordos in inner Mongolia, have regularly been cited as a prime example of China’s unsustainable construction-led economy.

There a lot of bearish material around the web today on disappointing Chinese growth.

China has released its monthly data dump this afternoon for April and the news is more (mild) disappointment.

China bull, Stephen Green of Standard Chartered, has spooked the market this morning with a downgrade to Chinese growth  to 7.7% for 2013 (from 8.3%), and to 7.5% for 2014 (from 8.2%).