It shouldn’t be news to anyone that Chinese data is manipulated.
But it moves markets in a big way so the numbers to be released at 0200 GMT are likely to drive trading for the remainder of the week.
Q4 GDP is expected at 7.8% with estimates ranging from 8.3% to 7.4%. I lean to the upside because in my experience trade numbers are a great indicator of how incoming data will look. Last week’s exports numbers were up 14.1% compared to 5.0% expected.
The trade data is even more indicative of industrial production, which is forecast to rise 10.2% year-over-year. The third number to watch is retail sales, which are forecast to rise 15.1% y/y.
Another sign of the renewed economic strength might be signs that property prices are rising once again.
New home prices in 70 major Chinese cities rose 0.3 per cent in November from October — the fourth month in the last five to show a rise — a modest increase but the most, nonetheless, in 19 months, official data showed.
If the numbers are strong, today’s decline in the Australian dollar after the soft employment data may prove to be a buying opportunity.
