Thursday, June 25, 2015

Why China's Silk Road Could Be Bad News For The Middle Kingdom

  •  Weak consumer spending is forcing China's leadership to go back to potential boondoggle infrastructure projects.
  •  No guarantee "Silk Road" projects will be profitable if completed.
  •  Ghost cities still remain mostly empty after over $2 trillion spent to build them.


Even though the official numbers from China's National Bureau of Statistics suggest consumption is moving steadily along, accounting for 51.2 percent of GDP, and following on the heels of the 12 percent boost in retail sales in 2014, there are questions these numbers may not reflect the reality on the ground.

It has been pointed out that "private surveys and results from consumer product companies" paint a different picture; one that draws the conclusion that consumer spending has been level or contracting.

Other data contributing to this as being the likely scenario are the PPI in April dropped for the 37th month in a row, and manufacturing in China, with a 49.2 reading in May (-4.6%, missing analysts expectations of -4.4%), confirms it is contracting faster than believed.

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Monday, June 15, 2015

Currency Battle Royal as Asia Fights for Export Dominance

There are a number of reason Asian currencies have been falling recently, with the most obvious being expectations the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the latter part of 2015.

Other factors attributed to weaker Asian currencies include pressure from local businesses, demand for electronics gadgets fell, MERS, funds pulling money from emerging markets, Japanese yen, and a potential Greek default. I'll break down how these are having an effect country-by-country in a moment.

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