Good is 'good' it seems once again - though we do remember just a few short weeks ago when the world and his pet rabbit were hanging on every word from the Chinese leaders and their next epic embarkation on the stimulus highway. Not necessary now though; as HSBC's China Manufacturing PMI confirms Friday's NBS version that China is 'expanding' once again (though marginally) [4]. The highest print for the HSBC number in 14 months - makes perfect sense given the way the world is behaving with world trade collapsing and the mercantilist nation's key customer (that would be the USA) seeing spending slowing. Nevertheless, it's enough to run to late Friday highs in S&P 500 futures and flush out those nascent stops. We just hope this 'expansionary' print is not a false hope as it was in October 2011... An evening full of PMIs has begun (see below)...
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And S&P 500 futures knocked off that late-day spike high...
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as EURUSD jerks back up to 6-week highs at 1.3047...
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PMI Tracker - 0000ET So Far 9 losers and 19 winners... with 15 now contracting versus 19 contracting last month (we will update as the evening progresses)
UPDATE: ES leaking back off highs...
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Charts/Data: Bloomberg