Y'all finished with playing the headline ping pong on the FOMC and Mr. P?
- "We're gonna cut, but not yet, so just calm down!" is the central message.
OK then. Over to Asia for some continuation. After this lead-in from Wall Street China is going to have a shocker on the stock markets.
Speaking of China, the Caixin / S&P Global Manufacturing PMI for January is the data pint highlight today.
Yesterday we had the official PMIs, a little improvement but not enough to drag manufacturing out of persistent contraction:
China has two primary Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) surveys - the official PMI released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Caixin China PMI published by the media company Caixin and research firm Markit / S&P Global.
- The official PMI survey covers large and state-owned companies, while the Caixin PMI survey covers small and medium-sized enterprises. As a result, the Caixin PMI is considered to be a more reliable indicator of the performance of China's private sector.
- Another difference between the two surveys is their methodology. The Caixin PMI survey uses a broader sample of companies than the official survey.
- Despite these differences, the two surveys often provide similar readings on China's manufacturing sector.
Today's is expected to dip a little from December but remain firmly in expansion.
Also on the calendar is the National Australia Bank business survey in Australia. NAB conducts both a monthly business survey and a quarterly survey. This is the quarterly report due today, not the monthly. It's the monthly that grabs more attention:
- both surveys aim to provide insights into the state of the economy and the performance of businesses
There are some key differences between the two, apart from the obvious (frequency of data collection and timeliness of release) a key difference is scope of coverage:
- The monthly business survey is focused on providing a timely snapshot of the business environment in Australia. It covers a wide range of sectors and provides data on business conditions, business confidence, sales, profits, employment, and other key indicators.
- The quarterly survey is more in-depth. It includes more detailed questions on specific topics such as investment intentions, borrowing, and exports.
- The quarterly survey has a larger sample size.
While both surveys provide valuable insights into the current state of the economy, the quarterly survey is better suited for identifying longer-term trends. This is because it includes more detailed questions on investment intentions and other forward-looking indicators that can provide insights into future economic activity.
- This snapshot from the ForexLive economic data calendar, access it here.
- The times in the left-most column are GMT.
- The numbers in the right-most column are the 'prior' (previous month/quarter as the case may be) result. The number in the column next to that, where there is a number, is the consensus median expected.
