According to China’s official PMI’s, those looking for a boom to begin worldwide in 2018 after it failed to materialize in 2017 are still to be disappointed. If there is going to be globally synchronized growth, it will have to happen without China’s participation in it. Of course, things could change next month or the month after, but this idea [...]
China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported last week that the official manufacturing PMI for that country rose from 51.6 in October to 51.8 in November. Since “analysts” were expecting 51.4 (Reuters poll of Economists) it was taken as a positive sign. The same was largely true for the official non-manufacturing PMI, rising like its counterpart here from 54.3 the month [...]
Back in June, China’s federal bond yield curve inverted. Ahead of mid-year bank checks, short-term govvies sold off as longer bonds continued to be bought. It was for some a rotation, for others a reflection of money rates threatening to spiral out of control. On June 19, for example, the 6-month federal security yielded 3.87% compared to a yield of [...]
In the US our economic data for a few months at least will be on shaky ground due to the lingering economic impacts of severe hurricanes. In China, the potential for irregularity is perhaps as great, though it has nothing to do with the weather. In a little over a week, Communist Party officials will gather for their 19th Party [...]
Both US manufacturing PMI’s underwhelmed just as those from China did. The IHS Markit Index was lower than the flash reading and the lowest level since last September. For May 2017, it registered 52.7, down from 52.8 in April and a high of 55.0 in January. Just by description alone you can appreciate exactly what pattern that fits. The ISM [...]
China’s PMI’s were uniformly disappointing with respect to what Moody’s was on about last week. Chinese authorities expended great effort and resources to get the economy moving forward again after several years of “dollar”-driven deceleration. There was a massive “stimulus” spending program where State-owned FAI expenditures of about 2% of GDP were elicited to make up for Private FAI that [...]
Like China, manufacturers in the US report feeling better about manufacturing. Also like China, this is nothing new. The ISM Manufacturing PMI was estimated to have increased to 54.7 in December, up from 53.2 in November. That was the highest overall figure since December 2014. This is consistent with other sentiment surveys showing a noticeable increase in optimism since summer. [...]
China’s official manufacturing PMI fell just slightly for December 2016, after rising for November to the highest since mid-2014. The overall index pulled back to 51.4 from 51.7 the previous month. The subindex for New Orders remained steady at 53.2, matching the highest point since July 2014. These PMI estimates suggest that China’s experience with the “rising dollar” has passed. [...]
From the orthodox binary view, PMI’s aren’t making any sense. Convention currently dictates that the economy must be growing, and where not moving unambiguously toward recession. Translating those expectations into these sentiment surveys means that under expectations for the former PMI’s should be not just above 50 but increasingly so, while the recessionary condition should measure nothing above 50 and [...]
On April 1, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that its official PMI for the manufacturing sector had burst back above 50 for the first time since July 2015 before all the “global turmoil.” The NBS didn’t actually use the word “burst”, of course, as they simply reported the figure and economists and the media did the rest. It seemed [...]
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