Highlights
The grain industry has been bad-mouthing China’s economic outlook which the grain industry says will greatly reduce China’s demand for grain and everything else. Yet economic data the past month has all been better than the market expected. This morning, we got the purchasing managers index (PMI), which is a forward looking economic indicator. A PMI above 50 means the economy will expand in the coming month.
The manufacturing PMI was expected to be 49.3, down from June's 49.5. However, the manufacturing PMI reported early this morning was 49.4, down from June, but better than expected. This PMI is by the Chinese government. An independent financial consulting firm, Caixin, will probably issue its PMI numbers for China later this week.
If more stimulus is needed to get the GDP growth to reach the 5% target, Chinese leaders said that stimulus will be directed at consumers instead of pouring funds into infrastructure projects as has been done in the past.