The topsy-turvy world of Chinese macroeconomic data continues to provide the Schrodinger-prone unreality that we have come to expect in this keep-'em-guessing Central Bank-driven fiat-fest we are experiencing. For 9 of the last 10 months, HSBC's China Manufacturing PMI has been in a contraction (sub-50) regime, while China's own Manufacturing PMI saw only 1 dip below the apocryphal 50-level (in Nov11) and has miraculously expanded for the last six months. The latest data from China (HSBC reports their final number tomorrow - as opposed to the Flash data already reported) showed the highest level of expansion for Chinese manufacturing in 13 months but missed economist's expectations - notably the first miss since November 2011 - as the divergence between HSBC and China remains near record levels. Of course, this makes perfect sense given this evening's 2nd worst three-month plunge in Australian Manufacturing since January 2009 (which seems to fit with the HSBC data as opposed to the 'strength' of the Chinese data). It seems tough for anyone to try to justify expectations of a Chinese stimulus given the country's own indication of its performance - check back to you Ben.
HSBC Manufacturing PMI vs China's 'special' version...
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The first miss of expectations (lower pane) for China's version of the Manufacturing PMI since November 2011 (when the two series started to diverge)...
And perhaps tonight's dismal miss and plunge in Aussie PMI is a better reflection of a real-time sensitive-to-China growth indicator...
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Charts: Bloomberg