It's not what a default means for China. Rather it's what happened to China to cause a default.
Start with this chart. Economists are hacking China growth forecasts, and the downgrades are accelerating.
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These downgrades are consistent with the Economic Strength Indices (ESI) compiled by our colleagues at @DataArbor . They measure incoming economic data versus its 1-year average.
China’s ESI has been falling and recently turned negative.
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Currently, China (orange) is the only large economy with an ESI below zero.
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BB Credit Impulse Index.
It measures the change in household and non-fin liabilities (credit) divided by GDP. The Chinese economy is deleveraging, so it should come as no surprise that China’s largest (leveraged) property co, Evergrande (and junk credit), is in trouble.
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The Chinese economy is hitting the skids hard. Their most vulnerable companies are in trouble and the government is cracking down on the private sector. The People’s Bank of China is injecting huge sums of liquidity into the economy, its most since January.
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Everyone needs to calm down about the Atlanta Fed GDPnow flipping to negative (chart).
It was driven by one statistic, merchandise trade imports, which can snap back as early as next month and take GDPnow back up.
The world is not ending.
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Here is the Merchandise trade deficit.
I labeled the last three months to show how much it blew out (and March 2022).
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The trade deficit exploded in the last three months, as well as March 2022, due to the surge in imports (orange) while exports (blue) remained relatively unchanged.
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The Ukraine War started in March 2022, and importers rushed to import products (such as grain) from the Black Sea area ahead of potential disruption.
Similarly, the last three months have seen importers rush to bring goods into the country ahead of Trump's tariffs.
The status quo cannot last. If we do nothing, it ends badly. What is the alternative?
Most of it has either already happened, or is underway. We weren't aware of the name.
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Powell on Dec 4, 2024 - “The U.S. federal budget is on an unsustainable path. The debt is not at an unsustainable level, but the path is unsustainable, and we know that we have to change that"
I have not posted a spot $BTC ETF update in a while, so here is one.
These ETFs started trading a year ago (Jan 11, 2024). Their total assets are $114 billion. (Note that they started at $29B on day 1 due to the $GBTC conversion.)
Three funds make up the vast majority.
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The net NEW money invested in all Spot BTC ETFs was $36.69B (bottom panel).
This excludes the $29B of $GBTC conversion on day 1.
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The dollar cost average purchase price is $BTC $74.3k (blue line), representing an unrealized gain of ~25%, or $12.73B (bottom panel).