After a modesly positive open, Chinese stocks have pushed back into the red after Chinese business sentiment collapsed in July. The MNI China Business Indicator fell a straggering 8.8pts to 48.8 in July (below 50 signifying pessimism) - the lowest since January 2009. It appears the encouraging bounce after the massive creduit injections into June has been eviscerated and future expectations also dropped 6.4 to 54.1 in July (below the long-run average). While bad news is good news for much of the rest of the world, for China, as it continues to try to project a strong underlying economy to sustain its still extremely rich stock market, bad news is bad news.
Weakest business sentiment since Jan 2009...
and stocks are not getting a bounce from the need for moar stimulus that this implies...
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The latest fall in overall sentiment outstripped the declines in the Production and New Orders indicators - although these both also fell significantly - suggesting that other factors, principally uncertainty brought on by the large correction in the stock market, may have played a part.
So a Chinese stock market crash does matter after all?
Charts: Bloomberg
