Talking Points:
- China’s economic data dump was a mixed affair
- However, the inescapable low point was industrial production’s miss
- The Aussie slipped after that, but has recovered
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The Australian Dollar took a modest knock Monday following a torrent of Chinese economic data which were mixed to say the least.
April’s official retail sales came in a little better than the markets had expected, rising 10.7% when forecasts hand centered on a 10.2% gain. But fixed-asset investment came in at 8.9%. That was a little below the 9.1% investors had hoped for.
The real miss was in industrial production though. It rose by 6.5% on the year in April, well below both the 7% gain expected and the previous month’s 7.6% gain.
While the retail-sales number chimed with surveys showing buoyant consumer confidence, the industrial figures only served to heighted suspicions that China’s overall growth may be start to fade as the year goes on.
Current overall growth levels were comfortably above the official target of 6.5% for this year according to first-quarter data. However, Chinese policy makers have shifted their emphasis to controlling financial risks and cooling the property market’s speculative fire. Investors can hardly be opposed to this but all the same there are worries about what the deleveraging process will mean for Chinese demand and production.
Some economic data already released have shown consistent falls in the pace of expansion, notably the private Purchasing Managers Index series from local media group Caixin.
Monday’s numbers didn’t do a lot to change current, rather cautious thinking on China, and the Australian Dollar action reflected this. AUD/USD dropped a few ticks to the session’s floor of 0.7386 after the numbers, but made back most of those losses in the subsequent half hour.
--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research
Contact and follow David on Twitter: @DavidCottleFX
