China Economy

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks.

Yesterday’s Chinese trade data contined this rather amusing chart, from Tom Orlick at Bloomie: Chinese capital flight sure ain’t stopped, it’s just bleeding out through bogus invoicing in the trade account not the capital account.

China’s March trade numbers are out and are a beat with exports up 11.5% versus 10% expected as the commodity crash base effects start to work their way out of the system.

Chinese inflation for March is out and has CPI at 2.3% year on year and PPI -4.6% year on year: CPI is contained with food offset by energy. PPI is a good leading indicator of industrial activity so its improvement is another sign of improving conditions (within a lousy context).

From Investing in Chinese Stocks.

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks.

From Macquarie:  The official and Caixin Chinese PMIs announced last Friday both significantly beat consensus, and the former went back above 50 for the first time since last July.

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks. Some homes in Shanghai have plunged 1.6 million yuan (14 percent) overnight in the wake of government efforts to slow the market.

It’s absurd but, hey, from the WSJ: Government efforts to tackle a glut of vacant housing in China by spurring home lending have triggered a bigger problem: a surge in risky subprime-style loans that is generating alarm.

Its April Fools, which means we’ll get reliable data out of China today…including the monthly services and manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers index).

Cross posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks: Reuters: China forex regulator buys $4.2 bln in stocks via new platform China’s foreign exchange regulator has bought mainland stocks worth over 27 billion yuan ($4.18 billion) via three low-profile investment firms it controls, the official Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday.

Crossposted from Investing in Chinese Stocks: Last week, two voting members of the FOMC said an April rate hike was possible. Many believed the PBoC allowed the yuan to depreciate as a warning to the Fed (PBoC Warns Fed: Hike and We Devalue).

The PBOC just put in their first post-Easter fix, setting the Yuan (USDCNY) exchange rate at 6.5060, a lot stronger than the 6.5232 on Easter Monday.

Cross posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks Carmen Reinhart at Project Syndicate is on the money: Those looking for a rough outline of the Chinese economy’s future would be wise to revisit what happened in Thailand in 1997, when the collapse of the baht precipitated the Asian financial crisis.

Cross-posted from Investing in Chinese Stocks. Last month news broke of Beijing residents lining up to transfer property at the registry of deeds (Transaction Tax Cut Spurs Bubble Activity in Beijing: ￥1000 For Reservation Number) and now the scalper’s price for a reservation number has doubled from around 1000 yuan to 2000 yuan.

Here are two charts that should make worry about Chinese property…a lot.

You can’t keep a good bubble down and global authorities know no other way to grow!

From Macquarie:  The latest FOMC meeting turned more dovish, as Fed officials now expect 2 rate hikes by end-2016, compared with 4 last Dec.

From Ms.

From Bloomie: China has for the second time this month raised the possibility of taxing foreign-exchange transactions as record capital outflows from the world’s second-largest economy put pressure on the yuan.

Markets may be celebrating the great China rebound but there’s still little reason for it in the data.