While much will be made of the greater-than-50 level for HSBC's China Services PMI, we note that the drop in the last two months is the largest in 15 months and takes the index back to its lowest levels since August 2011. While China's Manufacturing PMI was lauded as evidence that all is well and the slowdown has stopped, we note that in the history of the China Services PMI, it has only been lower than the current print in five of the forty-four months. It seems perhaps the transition is not going quite as according to plan.
[3]
Source: MarkitEconomics [4] [4]