It’s official now, the Chinese economy did not bottom out in the first quarter, and the latest data confirms just how badly the economy is doing (or just how too optimistic the market has been).

While I am bearish on China and did not think the worst was over for the Chinese economy, I did think that the slowdown has stabilised a bit in the late first quarter, and will probably have another leg down later this year.

The latest data suggests, however, that even China bears like myself could be wrong for being not bearish enough: the short-term stabilisation I was looking for has stayed much shorter than I thought it would, and the data from April have basically been all bad. The only good news appears to be that inflation is trending down, so inflation pressure is much less of a concern when the government is trying to implement pro-growth measures, and that’s what people have been hoping for.

With uniformly bad data in China, I don’t think we can rule out monetary easing in the near future, although timing of such moves would be difficult to predict. Monetary easing will be in the form of cutting reserve requirement ratio, and interest rates cut on the lending side cannot be ruled out, while cutting deposit rates seems to be somewhat less likely. [NOTE: China delivered a 50 basis point cut on Saturday.] But again, cutting RRR will not automatically translate into better loan growth. As I have stressed that loan growth are more demand driven than supply driven. With slowing economic growth, businesses are less likely to borrow even credit becomes available. Also, we have to pay attention to trade surplus and capital flow, as cutting RRR could be more of a measure to offset the loss of liquidity due to narrowing trade surplus and capital outflow.

Here’s a round-up of just how ugly some of these April macro data look.

Official manufacturing PMI: Actual 53.3 vs Expected 53.6 (also note just how the manufacturing PMI diverged from the actual industrial production figures in the charts way below)

Source: China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing

Exports growth: Actual 4.9% yoy vs. Expected 9.1% yoy, Imports growth: Actual 0.4% yoy vs. Expected 12.5% yoy

Source: General Administration of Customs

Industrial production growth: Actual 9.3% yoy vs. Expected 12.2% yoy (note the divergence with PMI)

Retail sales growth: Actual 14.1% yoy vs. Expected 15.1% yoy

Source: National Bureau of Statistics

Fixed asset investment growth: Actual 20.2% yoy vs. Expected 20.4% yoy

Source: National Bureau of Statistics

M2 money supply growth: Actual 12.8% yoy vs. Expected 13.3% yoy

Source: People’s Bank of China

New Loans: Actual RMB681.8 billion vs. Expected RMB 780 billion

Source: People’s Bank of China

This article originally appeared here: The worst is NOT over for the China’s economy

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