por admin » Dom May 13, 2012 9:33 pm
En lo que respecta a China los bears estan ganando.
El crecimient en todo, desde ventas retail, inversion, produccion industrial e importaciones han bajado en Abril, senialando una desaceleracion economica.
El recorte en 50 puntos basicos en los requerimientos de reserva de la banca seniala que las autoridades reconocen el problema. Pero ellos haran mas? por la mayor parte de este anio, los comentarios de los analistas que estan vendiendo China es que cuanto peor se ponga, mas grande sera el estimulo, pero todavia siguen esperando.
China’s economy has yet to bottom
By Craig Stephen
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China bears have the upper hand after growth in everything from retail spending and investment to industrial output and imports declined in April, pointing to a widening economic slowdown.
The move at the weekend to cut the amount of money Chinese banks must hold with the central bank by 50 basis points signals authorities recognize the problem. But will they do more? For much of this year, the commentary from many sell-side analysts was that the worse it gets, the bigger the likely stimulus — but we are still waiting.
As analysts reviewed last week’s data, they were cutting forecasts and questioning the lack of policy action by Beijing. SG Research said in a new note that not only did infrastructure investment fail to pick-up in April, but railway fixed-asset investment contracted 48% year-on-year, while fiscal spending growth was just in single digits.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote simply that they were wrong in expecting a pick-up in Chinese growth in the second quarter and have cut full year gross domestic product growth forecasts from 8.6% to 8.0%.
This was echoed by Capital Economics, which wrote that the release of April’s data drives several nails into hopes that China’s economy may have bottomed.
Click to Play What is China blogging about? Tensions between China and the Philippines are rising over a contested island in the South China Sea, as an executive announces the firing of his Filipino maid online and web users talk about boycotting the Philippines.
SG Research highlighted both a slowdown in property investment and electricity consumption, with the latter indicating a broad-based deceleration in economic activity. Not only did the growth rate in total property investment more than halve to 9% year-on-year in April, but there are also now signs the property slowdown is spreading to consumption as well. Household appliances recorded the lowest growth rate among major retail categories.
Power-production growth — a figure frequently used as a proxy for the health of the wider economy — had almost stalled, growing just 0.7% in April. In SG’s opinion, this latest batch of data activity “scream out for easing.”
Easing did come in terms of a cut to banks’ reserve ratio requirements, the third in the past six months, which means that large banks will now be required to hold reserves equal to 20% of deposits instead of 20.5%. But how effective this will be remains in doubt.
The hope is that this will get banks lending again after an unexpected drop in April loans. New loans were just 681.8 billion yuan, ($108 billion), well below market forecasts of 800 billion yuan and less than the one trillion yuan new-loans figure of March.
One hurdle to expanding lending is that China may now be facing a ‘demand deficit’ due to a dearth of profitable investment opportunities as the economy and property market slows. This was highlighted in a recent column , where the fall in long-term loans in March data suggested underlying lending growth was weak.
If this is the case, authorities need to do more than just make extra money available. The traditional response would be to cut the price of money or for the government to apply fiscal stimulus.
But stubborn inflationary pressures mean there has been a reluctance to cut interest rates, although at least April data showed inflation easing to 3.4% in April, after having risen to 3.6% in March, suggesting more scope for easing.
One explanation for the lack of more concerted efforts to stimulate the economy is that party leaders are distracted by succession planning. There remains considerable uncertainty over the once-in-a-decade leadership change scheduled for this autumn, following the fallout from the scandal surrounding deposed leader Bo Xilai.
In fact, Reuters reported last week that the appointment of the elite nine-member Politburo Standing Committee that heads the Chinese government may be postponed until early next year, according to a source. ( Read more on reported delay. )
If this is true, it suggests resolution of factional disputes within the Chinese Communist Party could continue to drag, potentially leaving a political vacuum. As it stands, only president-in-waiting Xi Jinping and his apparent premier, Li Keqiang, are reportedly guaranteed a spot on the new committee.
The economy could feel the brunt of such a delay. It has been suggested before that current property curbs designed to slow the market will not be removed until the new government is in place, and the same goes for Beijing coming up with a substantial stimulus effort.
Meanwhile, another wild card to distract Chinese leaders is the possible collapse of the euro and what this would mean for the competitive position of China, which ships approximately 20% of its exports to the euro zone.
CLSA in a new strategy note said a euro collapse is looking increasingly likely. Perhaps then, Beijing’s caution is warranted, as it is just keeping its powder in reserve for when it really needs it.
Elsewhere, if you look at the Australian dollar /quotes/zigman/4867876/sampled AUDUSD -0.11% , widely seen as a currency proxy for China’s growth, it is telling us to expect a slowdown. The Australian unit has fallen back to near parity with the U.S. dollar after hitting highs near $1.08 in February.
/quotes/zigman/4867876/sampled Add to portfolio AUDUSD USD/AUD US : ICAP Currencies 1.0004 -0.0011 -0.1059% Volume: 0.0000May 13, 2012 10:29p