Editor's Note: Below is a brief excerpt and chart from today's Early Look written by our Director of Research Daryl Jones.
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Speaking of chaos...China’s economy just turned chaotically south with the report of its monthly export number. Chinese export numbers last night were reported at -20.7% for February, which as we’ve highlighted in the Chart of the Day below was the worst monthly export number from China in 3 years. Not only that, the number dramatically missed expectations of down -4.8%. That’s not just a miss, that’s a huuuge miss. Now, of course, the punditry will tell you that part of this decline is due to the week long Chinese New Year, which occurred in early February this year. In part, that’s fair. But that doesn’t change the fact that for January and February combined, Chinese exports were down -4.6% and that was on the back of a -4% decline in December 2018. Make no mistake about it, if the world’s second largest economy is slowing, global economic growth is slowing. |
