The world cheered this morning’s trade estimates from China, as both exports and imports rebounded from a dismal start to the year. Exports rose 11.5% in March after falling 25% in February; imports fell “only” 7.6% after declining 13.8% the month before. Despite the difficulties with data calculations around the Lunar New Year, economists were quick with their usual glowing [...]
US trade statistics for February improved in both exports and imports, but there are questions as to the reason for the reverse and whether it is actually meaningful. After abysmal performance in every segment and category in January, there was some give back in February including positive numbers in some places. That suggests that January’s trade activity might have been [...]
According to Discern Investment Analytics, the number of retail store closings in the first two months of 2016 was about a third more than the closings in the same two months last year. That’s bad news just in terms of the raw increase, but more so given that there was a wave of shutting retailer outlets last year, too. Store [...]
Setting aside all other considerations and doubts about QQE, there was one factor that was supposed to be unassailable. That was the yen. QQE as a “money printing” operation was understood to act heavily on the exchange value of the Japanese currency so that it would drastically alter the competitive pricing of Japanese goods in Japan’s favor. From that point, [...]
January and February economic accounts for China are notoriously difficult to judge because of the non-uniform occurrence of the Lunar New Year. That is why, for example, China’s National Bureau of Statistics doesn’t even bother with industrial production, retail sales or fixed asset investment in those individual months, preferring to combine them together in one release encompassing both January and [...]
The PPI estimate for China was not a fifth straight -5.9%, instead the estimate for January 2016 was -5.3%; not appreciably different but at least not blatantly sticking with a single number. China’s CPI remained below 2% at just 1.8% in January, showing that as far as calculated “inflation” none of the PBOC’s massive efforts since November last year have [...]
Last month when China’s exports “only” declined by 1.7% (revised) the entire orthodox world took it as a definitive signal for the long-awaited monetary stimulus effects. Whether it was the yuan’s “devaluation” or the six rate cuts and the often double shots of reserve requirement reductions that accompanied them, December trade figures were so very encouraging. Economists, in particular, were [...]
If the Chinese were intent on financial reform, and that meant trying perhaps the impossible task of a managed bubble deformation, the genesis of the idea was forged in the United States. China’s vast industrial machine was made to service US consumers and financed with the full throat of eurodollar expansion, leaving so many goods for sale in US stores [...]
Chinese exports in December were better than feared, declining by just 1.4% against some expectations for an 8% decline. However, there were significant questions in the data, starting with year-end contract projections, unverified accounts that don’t match other countries’ trade figures and the return of Hong Kong as a potential falsification point. As ZeroHedge points out, without the huge jump [...]
The Census Bureau released its estimates for November US trade. It was yet another debacle for the FOMC narrative about an economy poised to overheat. November was the month in between the two FOMC meetings where they first declared (October) risks diminished and then (December) recovery conditions fully met. Instead, both exports and imports in that interim shrunk considerably, casting [...]
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