Tag Archive: PBOC

Dollar (In) Demand

2019-09-12

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2019-09-12

All China's Dollars, 2016-2019
The last time was bad, no getting around it. From the end of 2014 until the first months of 2016, the Chinese economy was in a perilous state. Dramatic weakness had emerged which had seemed impossible to reconcile with conventions about the country. Committed to growth over everything, and I mean everything, China was the one country the world thought it could count on for being immune to the widespread economic sickness.

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Is The Negativity Overdone?

2019-09-10

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2019-09-10

China Exports, 2006-2019
Give stimulus a chance, that’s the theme being set up for this week. After relentless buying across global bond markets distorting curves, upsetting politicians and the public alike, central bankers have responded en masse. There were more rate cuts around the world in August than there had been at any point since 2009.

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That Can’t Be Good: China Unveils Another ‘Market Reform’

2019-08-20

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2019-08-20

China Internal/External, 2014-2019
The Chinese have been reforming their monetary and credit system for decades. Liberalization has been an overriding goal, seen as necessary to accompany the processes which would keep the country’s economic “miracle” on track. Or get it back on track, as the case may be. Authorities had traditionally controlled interest rates through various limits and levers.

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The Myth of CNY DOWN = STIMULUS Won’t Die

2019-08-11

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2019-08-11

China Exports, 2006-2019
On the one hand, it’s a small silver lining in how many even in the mainstream are beginning to realize that there really is something wrong. Then again, they are using “trade wars” to make sense of how that could be. For the one, at least they’ve stopped saying China’s economy is strong and always looks resilient no matter what data comes out.

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China’s Big Gamble(s): Betting on QE Again?

2019-07-30

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2019-07-30

China GDP, 2001-2019
As an economic system, even the most committed socialists had come to realize it was a failure. What ultimately brought down the Soviet Union wasn’t missiles, tanks, and advanced air craft, it was a simple thing like bread. You can argue that Western military spending forced the Communist East to keep up, and therefore to expend way too much on guns at the expense of butter.

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Dimmed Hopes In China Cars, Too

2019-06-15

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2019-06-15

China Total Car Sales, 2013-2019
As noted earlier this week, the world’s two big hopes for the global economy in the second half are pinned on the US labor market continuing to exert its purported strength and Chinese authorities stimulating out of every possible (monetary) opening. Incoming data, however, continues to point to the fallacies embedded within each.

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Commodities And The Future Of China’s Stall

2019-06-13

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2019-06-13

China Exports, 2006-2019
Commodity prices continued to fall last month. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet catalog, non-energy commodity prices accelerated to the downside. Falling 9.4% on average in May 2019 when compared to average prices in May 2018, it was the largest decline since the depths of Euro$ #3 in February 2016.

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Coloring One Green Shoot

2019-04-16

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2019-04-16

China Retail Sales, 2010-2018
China’s Passenger Car Association reported last week that retail sales of various vehicles totaled 1.78 million units in March 2019. The total was 12% less than the number of automobiles sold in March 2018. This matches the government’s data, both sets very clear as to when Chinese economic struggles accelerated: May 2018.

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February 2019 PBOC/RMB Update

2019-03-24

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2019-03-24

China Internal/External 2017-2019
This will serve mostly as an update to what is going on inside the Chinese monetary system. The PBOC’s balance sheet numbers for February 2019 are exactly what we’ve come to expect, ironically confirmed today on the domestic end by the FOMC’s dreaded dovishness. Therefore, rather than rewrite the same commentary for why this continues to happen I’ll just link to prior discussions.

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No Sign of Stimulus, Or Global Growth, China’s Economy Sunk By (euro)Dollar

2019-03-16

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2019-03-16

China Industrial Production 1999-2019
Najib Tun Razak was elected as Malaysia’s Prime Minister in early 2009. Taking office that April amid global turmoil and chaos, Najib’s first official visit was to Beijing in early June. His father, also Malaysia’s Prime Minister, had been the first among Asian nations to open formal diplomatic relations with China thirty-five years before.

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China Has No Choice

2019-03-06

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2019-03-06

Chinese Money & Inflation 1997-2011
China’s central bank was given more independence to conduct monetary policies in late 2003. It had been operating under Order No. 46 of the President of the People’s Republic of China issued in March 1995, which led the 3rd Session of the Eighth National People’s Congress (China’s de facto legislature) to create and adopt the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the People’s Bank of China.

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China’s Big Money Gamble

2019-02-19

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2019-02-19

World Bank Pink Sheet Commodity Indices 1995-2019
While oil prices rebounded in January 2019 around the world, outside of crude commodities continued to struggle. According to the World Bank’s Pink Sheet, base metal prices fell another 1.8% on average from December. On an annual basis, these commodities as a group are about 16% below where they were in January 2018.

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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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The Relevant Word Is ‘Decline’

2018-12-18

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2018-12-18

China Industrial Production, Nov 1998 - 2018
The English language headline for China’s National Bureau of Statistics’ press release on November 2018’s Big 3 was, National Economy Maintained Stable and Sound Momentum of Development in November. For those who, as noted yesterday, are wishing China’s economy bad news so as to lead to the supposed good news of a coordinated “stimulus” response this was itself a bad news/good news situation.

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Sometimes Bad News Is Just Right

2018-12-16

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2018-12-16

China Imports 2008-2018
There is some hope among those viewing bad news as good news. In China, where alarms are currently sounding the loudest, next week begins the plenary session for the State Council and its working groups. For several days, Communist authorities will weigh all the relevant factors, as they see them, and will then come up with the broad strokes for economic policy in the coming year (2019).

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China Going Back To 2011

2018-12-13

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2018-12-13

China PBOC Balance Sheet and CPI, Nov 2006 - 2018
The enormous setback hadn’t yet been fully appreciated in March 2012 when China’s Premiere Wen Jiabao spoke to and on behalf of the country’s Communist governing State Council. Despite it having been four years since Bear Stearns had grabbed the whole world’s attention (for reasons the whole world wouldn’t fully comprehend, specifically as to why the whole world would need to care about the shadow “dollar” business of one US investment “bank”) the...

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China’s Pooh Lesson

2018-11-14

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2018-11-14

Chinese Money 2001-2018
It’s one of those “nothing to see here” moments for Economists trying not to appreciate what’s really going on in China therefore the global economy. The slump in China’s automotive sector dragged on through October, with year-over-year sales down for the fourth straight month.

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Raining On Chinese Prices

2018-10-20

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2018-10-20

China Price Stability 2007-2018
It was for a time a somewhat curious dilemma. When it rains it pours, they always say, and for China toward the end of 2015 it was a real cloudburst. The Chinese economy was slowing, dangerous deflation developing around an economy captured by an unseen anchor intent on causing havoc and destruction. At the same time, consumer prices were jumping where they could do the most harm.

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What Chinese Trade Shows Us About SHIBOR

2018-08-10

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2018-08-10

China Exports, Jan 2008 - Jul 2018
Why is SHIBOR falling from an economic perspective? Simple again. China’s growth both on its own and as a reflection of actual global growth has stalled. And in a dynamic, non-linear world stalled equals trouble. Going all the way back to early 2017, there’s been no acceleration (and more than a little deceleration). The reflation economy got started in 2016 but it never went anywhere. For most of last year, optimists were sure that it was just the...

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China’s Seven Years Disinflation

2018-07-11

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2018-07-11

Chinese Money 2009-2014
In early 2011, Chinese consumer prices were soaring. Despite an official government mandate for 3% CPI growth, the country’s main price measure started out the year close to 5% and by June was moving toward 7%. It seemed fitting for the time, no matter how uncomfortable it made PBOC officials. China was going to be growing rapidly even if the rest of the world couldn’t.

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