Tuesday, February 16, 2016

China Gets Hit with an Ugly Stick on Monday

Still waiting for things to turn around, I think.

Data Point #1

China's trade data was released Monday, and it continued to show a big rebalancing of the country's economy. Imports tumbled 14.4% year-over-year in January, missing the expected 1.8% gain by a wide margin. Exports also fell short, down 6.6% YoY against an expected 3.6% increase. In dollar terms, the import side of the ledger looked even more terrifying, down 18.8% compared with the 3.6% drop that was anticipated. 

Data Point #2

Bad loans at Chinese banks are at their highest level in nearly a decadeNonperforming loans at Chinese banks surged 51% year-over-year to 1.27 trillion, hitting their highest level since June 2006. Data released by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on Monday said China's bad-loan ratio climbed to 1.67% of assets from 1.25% in 2014, according to Bloomberg. "Three developments are potentially worrisome: half of all loans are linked, directly or indirectly, to China's overheated real-estate market; unregulated shadow banking accounts for nearly half of new lending; and the debt of many local governments is probably unsustainable," McKinsey Global Institute said. The Chinese yuan weakened 0.3% to 6.5133 per dollar.

Source for both: http://www.businessinsider.com/opening-bell-february-16-2016-2016-2

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