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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Ten seafarers have now been killed in 13 attacks on merchant vessels since the Iran conflict erupted on February 28 — more than the 7 U.S. servicemen killed in the war.
The focal point is shifting: can the Strait of Hormuz be reopened? Is the Administration pivoting to that mission?
Every day without a visible path to reopening, the market will price in more risk.
A 10% increase in energy prices that persists for a year would push global inflation up by 40 basis points and slow economic growth by 0.1-0.2%, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said.
So, what price measures "persists for a year?"
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As the table below shows, crude oil futures prices for delivery into 2027 are trading in extreme backwardation.
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Below is the calendar spread between the first contract (now April) and the 6th contract (now September).
As the bottom panel shows, this spread is -25%, a record since the mid-1990s when the contract specifications were last changed.
Thoughts on market reaction to the Venezuela news.
tl:dr
The spigot in Venezuela waiting to be opened to flood the world with crude oil and lower its price has been broken for a while.
It will take several years to fix it.
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Venezuela is a founding member of OPEC their official statistics show its production (blue) is down 71% from its 1998 peak.
Its sustainable capacity (max output in within 90 days and held for a year) is 1M barrels/day (orange).
Venezuela is at its maximum now.
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Why the big production decline?
Socialist Hugo Chávez was elected in December 1998. He turned out to be a brutal dictator. Only to be replaced by an even more brutal dictator, Nicolás Maduro, when Chávez died in March 2013.