UPDATE: China HSBC PMI prints 47.7 - same as Flash - for worst 4-month decline in 3 years
Following Japan's disappointing PMI last night, and after some 'hope' in June, Aussie PMI collapsed from an almost 'recovering' 49.6 to 42.0 with only 1 in 12 industries expanding and production, employment, and new orders all falling further into contraction. Then came a formerly consistent bellwether of the global recovery (until of course it started to fall when it became irrelevant) - South Korea's PMI tumbled to 47.2 (from 49.4) - its lowest since Sept 2012 (and falling for the 3rd month in a row) and employment down the fastest in 17 months. Then after the early Flash HSBC PMI printed at 11-month lows (final HSBC PMI shortly) and firmly in contraction, China's official PMI just arrived at a perfectly 'reasonable' 50.3 (highest in 2 months) and well ahead of a contractionary 49.8 expectation. Remember this is the same data whose subsets were temporarily (and then permanently) removed last month. This is the widest disparity from HSBC's measure in 15 months.
Aussie PMI
South Korea PMI
China PMI
10 of the 12 sub-indices rose - of course they did - well - China earlier said it will withhold industry specific data from the PMI report (due to time constraints)!
Notice what happened the last time HSBC and the 'official' data was so far apart... the official data cratered back to reality
This does not bode well for all those hoping for moar from the PBOC after last night's repo treat... as Citi's chief economist noted, "As long as the economy is within the range they set, the priority of the government is still to restructure the economy and reform."
Of course, the real question is - if an AsiaPac economy collapses but the S&P 500 hits all-time highs, would anyone hear it?
And in other news, this is what the wildelife thinks of China's economy which is both expanding and contracting at the same time.
