Editor's Note: Below is a brief excerpt from our intra-month update to ETF Pro Plus, our monthly newsletter of our Macro team's favorite ETF ideas. Click here to learn more about ETF Pro Plus.
The recent April high-frequency hard data out of mainland China confirmed what our market signal did recently: that the Chinese economy had not yet bottomed. Specifically:
- Retail Sales growth slowed -150bps to 7.2% YoY, the slowest RoC since MAY ’03;
- YTD Fixed Assets Investment growth slowed -20bps to 6.1% YoY, the slowest RoC since DEC; and
- Industrial Production growth slowed -310bps to 5.4% YoY, the slowest RoC since NOV, which itself tied for the slowest pace since the throes of NOV ’08.
Investors should note my use of all-caps for the month of “APRIL” because I am calling attention to the fact that these data slowed before the impact of Trump’s latest ratcheting up of Sino-US trade tensions in MAY.
