Tag Archive: China Producer Price Index

A Producer Price Index (PPI) is a price index that measures the average changes in prices received by domestic producers for their output. Its importance is being undermined by the steady decline in manufactured goods as a share of spending.

FX Daily, May 11: Stocks Slide but Little Demand for Safe Havens

2021-05-11

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2021-05-11

The sell-off in US shares yesterday has triggered sharp global losses today, and there is no flight into fixed income as benchmark yields are higher across the board. Nor is the dollar serving as much as a safe haven. It is mostly softer against the major currencies.

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FX Daily, September 10: Turn Around Tuesday

2019-09-10

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2019-09-10

Overview: The momentum from the end of last week carried into yesterday's activity, but the momentum began fading.  Today, equities were mixed in Asia Pacific and weaker in Europe. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 reversed lower yesterday and is slipped further today.  The S&P 500 may gap lower at the open.

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FX Daily, July 10: North American Focus: Poloz and Powell

2019-07-10

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2019-07-10

Overview: The US Treasury market is retreating for the fourth consecutive session ahead of Fed Chairman Powell's testimony before Congress. It is the longest losing streak in six months, and the 10-year yield has risen 15 bp over the run. This is helping drag up global yields, and today Asia Pacific yields mostly rose 2-3 basis points while core European bond yields are 5-7 bp higher and peripheral yields up a little less.

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FX Daily, June 12: Anxiety Ticks Up, Risks Pared

2019-06-12

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2019-06-12

Overview: The S&P 500 snapped a five-day advance yesterday and set the heavier tone for equities today.  Continued protests in Hong Kong were not shrugged off as they have been in the last couple of sessions.  The Hang Seng's nearly 1.9% decline was the largest in a month and led the region lower. 

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More Unmixed Signals

2019-01-06

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2019-01-06

China PMI 2010-2018
China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that the country’s official manufacturing PMI in December 2018 dropped below 50 for the first time since the summer of 2016. Many if not most associate a number in the 40’s with contraction. While that may or not be the case, what’s more important is the quite well-established direction.

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Chinese Inflation And Money Contributions To EM’s

2018-06-15

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2018-06-15

China CPI PBOC Bank Reserves, May 2007 - 2018
The People’s Bank of China won’t update its balance sheet numbers for May until later this month. Last month, as expected, the Chinese central bank allowed bank reserves to contract for the first time in nearly two years. It is, I believe, all part of the reprioritization of monetary policy goals toward CNY. How well it works in practice remains to be seen. Authorities are not simply contracting one important form of base money in China (bank...

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FX Daily, April 11: Mr Market Waits for Other Shoe to Drop

2018-04-11

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2018-04-11

Between Syria, trade tensions, and the US special investigator into Russia's attempt to influence the US election, market participants are cautious as they wait for another shoe to drop. The US equity market recovery yesterday has short coattails as markets in Asia and Europe struggle. Bond yields are mostly softer, and the US 10-year note yield is dipping back below 1.80%.

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FX Daily, March 09: Today is about Jobs, but Not Really

2018-03-09

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2018-03-09

The US Administration has softened its initial hardline position of no exemptions for the new steel and aluminum tariffs. There is little doubt that the actions will be challenged at the World Trade Organization and the idea that national security includes the protection of jobs for trade purposes will be tested. At the same time, US President Trump has agreed to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

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FX Daily, February 09: Equity Sell-Off Extends to Asia, but More Muted in Europe

2018-02-09

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2018-02-09

The 100-point slide in the S&P 500 and the 1000-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrials yesterday spurred more bloodletting in Asia. The 1.8% drop in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index (for a 6.7% loss for the week) may conceal the magnitude of the regional losses. At one point the CSI 300 of the large Chinese mainland shares was off more than 6% before closing off 4.3% (and 10% for the week). The H-shares index was down 3.9% and 12% for the week.

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FX Daily, January 10: Yen Short Squeeze Extended

2018-01-10

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2018-01-10

Sparked by fears that the BOJ took a step toward the monetary exit by reducing the amount of long-term bonds it is buying, there is an apparent scramble to cover previously sold yen positions. The dollar finished last week near JPY113.00. It fell to about JPY112.35 yesterday, near the 50% retracement of the greenback's bounce from the late-November lows near JPY110.85.

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Bubble Watch: Warning Signs That The Everything Bubble Will Burst in 2018

2017-12-20

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2017-12-20

Producer Price Indexes, Dec 2000 - 2017
I believe 2018 will be the year inflation arrives. The reason, as I’ve noted throughout mid-2017, is that multiple Central Banks, particularly the European Central Bank (ECB), Bank of Japan (BoJ) and Swiss National Bank (SNB) have maintained emergency levels of QE and money printing, despite the fact that globally the economy is performing relatively well.

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Global Inflation Continues To Underwhelm

2017-10-19

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2017-10-19

Another Side of China, Aug 2016 - Oct 2017
Chinese producer prices accelerated in September 2017, while consumer price increases slowed. The National Bureau of Statistics reported this weekend that China’s PPI was up 6.9% year-over-year, a quicker pace than the 6.3% estimated for August and a 5.5% rate in July. Earlier in the year producer prices were driven mostly by 2016’s oil rebound, along with those in the rest of the global economy, but in recent months there has been more influence...

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NAFTA Worries Take Toll, Yellen’s Best Guess Supports Greenback

2017-10-17

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2017-10-17

Risk that NAFTA collapses weighs on CAD and MXN. Yen is slightly firmer despite US yields edging higher and weekend polls suggesting LDP could nearly secure a 2/3 majority of its own. The sterling is consolidating after sharp moves at the end of last week.

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FX Daily, August 09: North Korea lets EUR/CHF Collapse

2017-08-09

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2017-08-09

The bellicose rhetoric from the US and North Korean officials is the main driver today. We would qualify that assessment by noting that first, the market moves are rather modest, suggesting a low-level anxiety among investors. Second, pre-existing trends have mostly been extended. Turning to Asia first, the Korea's equity market fell 1.1%. The Kospi has fallen for the past two weeks (~2.2%).

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Competing CPI,PPI, Industrial Production and Retail Sales: No Luck China, Either

2017-07-15

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2017-07-15

China Retail Sales and Industrial Production
Former IMF chief economist Ken Rogoff warned today on CNBC that he was concerned about China. Specifically, he worried that country might “export a recession” to the rest of Asia if not the rest of the world. I’m not sure if he has been paying attention or not, but the Chinese economy since 2012 has been doing just that to varying degrees often just shy of that level.

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FX Daily, June 09: Sterling Shocked, Dollar Broadly Firmer

2017-06-09

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2017-06-09

What looked like a savvy move in late April has turned into a nightmare. Collectively, voters have denied the governing Conservative party a parliamentary majority. The uncertainty today does not lie yesterday with the known unknown, but with the shape of the next government and what it means for Brexit.

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Commodity and Oil Prices: Staying Suck

2017-05-24

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2017-05-24

U.S. Industrial Production, 2006-2017
The rebound in commodity prices is not difficult to understand, perhaps even sympathize with. With everything so depressed early last year, if it turned out to be no big deal in the end then there was a killing to be made. That’s what markets are supposed to do, entice those with liquidity to buy when there is blood in the streets. And if those speculators turn out to be wrong, then we are all much the wiser for their pain.

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Trying To Reconcile Accounts; China

2017-05-21

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2017-05-21

China Fixed Asset Investment, April 2013 - April 2017
Chinese economic data for April 2017 has been uniformly disappointing. External trade numbers resembled too much commodity prices, leaving an emphasis on them rather than actual economic forces. The latest figures for the Big 3, Industrial Production, Retail Sales, and Fixed Asset Investment, unfortunately also remained true to the pattern.

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China Inflation Now, Too

2017-05-18

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2017-05-18

China Producer Price Index, April 2007 - May 2017
We can add China to the list of locations where the near euphoria about inflation rates is rapidly falling apart. This is an important blow, as the Chinese economy has been counted on to lead the world out of this slump if through nothing other than its own sheer recklessness. “Stimulus” was all the rage one year ago, and for a time it seemed to be producing all the right effects. This was “reflation”, after all.

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