Tag Archive: China

Follow China’s True Line

2022-06-05

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2022-06-05

It’s a broken a record, the macro stylus stuck unable to move on, just skipping and repeating the same spot on the vinyl. Since Xi Jinping’s lockdowns broke it, as it’s said, when Xi is satisfied there’s zero COVID he’ll release the restrictions and that will fix everything. The economy will go right back to good, like flipping a switch.

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Bank of Canada’s Turn

2022-06-01

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2022-06-01

Overview: The recent equity rally is stalling. Asia Pacific equities were mixed, with Japan, South Korea, and Australia, among the major bourses posting gains. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 500 is slipping lower for the second consecutive session, ending a four-day bounce. US equity futures are little changed.

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Is It Being Demanded?

2022-05-29

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2022-05-29

Shipping container rates have been dropping since early March – right around the time when we had just experienced our “collateral days” and then stood by to witness chaotic financial fireworks, inversions, the whole thing.

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Synchronized Not Coronavirus

2022-05-19

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2022-05-19

There is an understandable tendency to just write off this weekend’s disastrous Chinese data as nothing more than pandemic politics. After all, it has been Emperor Xi’s harsh lockdowns spreading like wildfire across China rather than any disease (why it has been this way, that’s another Mao-tter).

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Macro and Prices: Sentiment Swings Between Inflation and Recession

2022-05-14

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2022-05-14

(On vacation for the rest of the month.  Going to Portugal.  Commentary will resume on June 1.   Good luck to us all.) The market is a fickle mistress. The major central banks were judged to be behind the inflation curve.

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Synchronizing Chinese Prices (and consequences)

2022-05-14

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2022-05-14

It isn’t just the vast difference between Chinese consumer prices and those in the US or Europe, China’s CPI has been categorically distinct from China’s PPI, too. That distance hints at the real problem which the whole is just now beginning to confront, having been lulled into an inflationary illusion made up from all these things.

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Sentiment Remains Fragile, and the Euro and Sterling can barely Sustain even Modest Upticks

2022-05-13

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2022-05-13

Equities are recovering from dramatic losses.  Today, the Nikkei, Hang Seng, and Kospi surged by more than 2%. 

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Dollar and Yen Surge

2022-05-12

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2022-05-12

Overview: Global equities are bleeding lower. Several large markets in the Asia Pacific region, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India are off more than 2%. Japan and Australian bourses fell by more than 1.5%.

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Greenback Softens Ahead of CPI

2022-05-11

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2022-05-11

Overview: It appears that investors have become more concerned about growth prospects and less about inflation in recent days. The US 10-year yield that had flirted with 3.20% at the start of the week is now around 2.93%.

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Industrial Synchronized Demand

2022-05-11

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2022-05-11

Are the industrial commodities starting to get a whiff of demand side rejection? Short run trends suggest that this could be the case. From copper to iron and the highest (formerly) of the high flyers, aluminum, this particular group has been exhibiting a rather synchronized setback going back to the end of March, start of April.

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The Week Ahead: US CPI and PPI Set to Soften

2022-05-07

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2022-05-07

The Fed's 50 bp rate hike is behind us.  Another 50 bp hike is expected next month. The April employment report will do little to calm the anxiety about the "too tight" labor market. 

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Fed Day

2022-05-04

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2022-05-04

Overview: The markets are mostly treading water ahead of the FOMC decision later today. Tech stocks tumbled in Hong Kong and the Hang Seng fell a little more than 1%, while India was the worst performer in the region falling over 2% following an unexpected and intra-meeting hike by the Reserve Bank of India.

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Weekly Market Pulse: Welcome Back To The Old Normal

2022-05-03

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2022-05-03

Stagflation. It’s a word that strikes fear in the hearts of investors, one that evokes memories – for some of us – of bell bottoms, disco, and Jimmy Carter’s American malaise. The combination of weak growth and high inflation is the worst of all worlds, one that required a transformational leader and a cigar-chomping central banker to defeat the last time it came around.

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The Euro Continues to Stuggle to Sustain Even Modest Upticks, but Specs Still Long in the Futures

2022-05-02

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2022-05-02

Overview: The US dollar begins the new week on a firm note ahead of the mid-week conclusion of the FOMC meeting.  Many centers are closed for the May Day holiday, making for thinner market conditions.  Equities are mostly lower in the markets that traded today.  This includes Japan, South Korea, Australia, and India in the Asia Pacific. 

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Did China’s Politburo Throw Markets a Lifeline?

2022-04-29

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2022-04-29

Overview: Speculation that a midday statement by China's Politburo signals new efforts to support the economy ahead of  next week's holiday appears to have stirred the animal spirits. 

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China’s Covid Sends Commodities Lower and helps the Dollar Extend Gains

2022-04-25

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2022-04-25

Overview:  Fears that the Chinese lockdowns to fight Covid, which have extended for four weeks in Shanghai, are not working, and may be extended to Beijing has whacked equity markets, arrested the increase in bond yields, and lifted the dollar. 

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CNY’s Drop Wasn’t ‘Devaluation’ in ’15 nor ’18, and It Isn’t ‘Devaluation’ Now

2022-04-25

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2022-04-25

For one thing, that whole Bretton Woods 3 thing is really off to an interesting start. And by interesting, I mean predictably backward. According to its loud and leading proponent, China’s yuan was supposed to be ascending while the dollar sank, its first step toward what many still claim will end up in some biblical-like abyss.

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The (less) Dollars Behind Xi’s Shanghai of Shanghai

2022-04-25

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2022-04-25

What everyone is saying, because it’s convenient, is that China’s zero-COVID policies are going to harm the economy. No. Economic harm of the past is the reason for the zero-COVID policies. As I showed yesterday, the cracking down didn’t just show up around 2020, begun right out in the open years beforehand, born from the scattering ashes of globally synchronized growth.

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Shanghai’s Current Plight Began in 2017

2022-04-23

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2022-04-23

The first chapters to China’s new story now playing out in Shanghai were written down in October 2017. Planning for them had begun years earlier, their author Xi Jinping requiring more research before committing them to paper. Communist authorities there had grown increasingly concerned about the lack of growth potential for its political system by then utterly dependent for a quarter-century on the economy growing.

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China, Japan, And The Relative Pre-March Euro$ Calm In February

2022-04-22

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2022-04-22

The month of February 2022, the calm before the latest storm. Russians went into Ukraine toward the month’s end, collateral shortage became scarcity, maybe a run right at February’s final day, and then serious escalations all throughout March – right down to pure US Treasury yield curve inversion.Given that setup, it was unsurprising to find Treasury’s February TIC data mostly unremarkable.

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