中国7月经济数据全面不及预期，刺激政策呼声渐涨

Not am in Shanghai, Shenzhen and here in Hong Kong. You're watching the China show? I'm Yvonne Man with David Inglés. We're coming down to the open of markets in Greater China. Let's get to your top stories today. Stocks across the Asia Pacific are rising as South Korean markets resumed trade today, tracking a rally in U.S. chipmakers. Brent, as you can see now topping 90 bucks a barrel. And as bond gets, of course, surging on fresh uncertainty over the Iran war, China's economic slowdown deepens, with all major activity gauges falling short of estimates despite a tech fueled boom in advanced manufacturing.

Speaking of, Unity Robotics sets the date for its highly anticipated Shanghai debut, and early indications show the stock popping on its first day of trading. And we'll have more robots taking a deep dive into their role in the workplace and their potential impact on the labor market. Want to hear from Real Men Robotics, which trains machines to work in factories or warehouses just like humans? When we finally got that data dump, uh, later on the after yesterday.

And it wasn't good. Right. And this is before, uh, after, I should say markets closed. So in some ways we're going to watch what the stock reaction is going to be. You know, when it comes to renminbi with our bond futures didn't do too much. But then you know there's a lot of lingering questions now you know, can this economy actually reach that growth target at the end of this year without any additional stimulus. Yeah.

I mean, has uh what were the one offs, I think is the first question the weather for July. And, you know, what were there structural trends under in an underscore the data that might then prompt more aid to come sooner rather than later. Right. And I think that's a question for bond markets. And we have a phrase that is do we get bond yields picking up high in anticipation of more support or as we see it right now. We've now taken out to the downside 1.68% unattainable.

So the one market reaction is quite telling at this point here. Yeah. In the calls for stimulus are sort of growing. I think, you know, when you have uh, the likes of BNP, I believe they were saying that, you know, it needs 4.3% growth in the second half to reach that growth target. So can we actually get there? Certainly. One key question in what form could it actually take here right now? Because when when you start to see that this pivot in the economy, right.

It's really apparent in the data here. And really what you still have I hit export still strong. You got to wonder what policymakers are thinking right now. Yeah. Which of the two parts of the economy are, you know, have more weighting. And as far as policy description is concerned. Right. And I think, uh, the collapse outside the tech story is becoming more apparent when you look at a trend for entrench as far as the data is concerned.

And, you know, you juxtapose the yield in China's story with everything that's going on outside. Right. And I think it's hard to look at markets just from the prism of China when you look at bond yields in the U.S., for example, again, you know that the 30 year yield hitting levels we haven't seen since 2007 is the other market story. And I think you put those two things together. And as a policymaker, you had the two biggest economies seemingly on very different footing.

What do you do ahead of Jackson Hole? And of course, as we await, if any more stimulus coming through out of the China, especially when you continue to see AI and in credit markets continue than this whole investment boom in a way that is now really is a start weighing on the Treasury market, right? You're starting to see that in a big way. So certainly that's that's still a focus here. We're checking markets and yeah that that return to to markets there are opening in Korea.

That's certainly one thing to watch out for here today. Yeah we're up 2.5%. That's a catch up trade. It's worth pointing out though. So this return to in on Barry Bonds point there. This return towards the old winners like the Nikkei. By the way in case you missed it, the nick is actually the best performing index globally, uh, this August which underscores this return to what has worked. Gold, by the way. Yes, we're back to where we are closer to 4500 now in gold.

So we're looking at mining stocks as we go into the open today. We're looking at energy stocks as well. Energy names on the back of Brent Price. It's not just 90. We're now trading at 91 on the most active contract day. And of course copper has been trading in and around to record level. So obviously it's a commodity complex that we are going to sink our teeth into over the next two hours or so. Yeah. Let's kind of break down more of the kind of data that we got yesterday here.

With the economic slowdown worsening at the start of the second half, the boom in tech failed to lift sectors untouched by this global AI build out. Let's bring in our chat correspondent Mimi Lo. She's here right now to talk us through the activity data that we got here. How bad was it? Yeah, it was very bad because every single metric had failed to meet estimates. And the size of the misses were pretty significant as well, particularly when it comes to retail sales.

We're expecting an improvement from the previous month, but it deteriorated and the actual print came in less than half of the forecasts of retail sales just 0.6%. The expectation was 1.5%. So that tells you that domestic demand, that appetite to spend has been very, very weak. Industrial production falling below 5% now 4.5% is depressing for July. So a part of it could be because of the bad weather, the typhoons and the floods forcing some factories to shut and disrupting, um, shipments as well.

But of course, if you peel back the lazy layers and look at the breakdown of different products under industrial production, then you would see that the tech sector is doing very well. So things like industrial robots and by 30% integrated circuits 21%. So double digit gains there. What else we are seeing if you look at other things textiles, chemicals, steel these are just looking at single digit gains or even decline.

So it's a very clear dichotomy between the tech sector and the non-tech sector, which is, uh, collapsing. Housing numbers also came out. What do we know? Yeah. So we have the new homes, new home prices falling faster than the previous month. And so this is raising doubts about the sustainability of that recovery. Secondly, of resale home prices that is also falling, but at a slower pace compared to the previous month.

But you pair this with the property investment data from the activity data. Yesterday that was down 19%. That is a record low a fresh record low. And also you combine this with the credit data that we've got over the weekend as well, with people unwilling to take out long term home loans. It really tells you that. Well, it just doesn't make any economic sense. Right? Why would you borrow money to spend on an investment on a property that is increasingly being seen as more of a liability than an asset?

Okay. What does this mean for stimulus? Right. I mean, it's interesting that, you know, up until now, I think policymakers are saying, you know, as long as we get to that, you know, growth target, even at the low end, it's just enough right to do nothing. We reach that sort of limit now. And it really is testing. Yeah, we have reached that limit because according to some economists estimates, the July growth is coming in at about 4.1% and the country needs a 4.3% growth in the second half to meet the full year target.

So if this pace continues, more stimulus will be needed. No question. And we did see very fast reaction, at least rhetorically. We heard from Premier Li at the State Council emphasizing and urging the government to really meet the year's target and to promote private investment, to expand domestic demand. Um, we also have a stat