China’s economy is hitting an imbalance wall. It keeps building, but people aren’t buying.
🧱 Investment eats up 42% of GDP — nearly double the global average. 🛒 Household spending? Just 37% — vs. 60% in most economies. The result: too many factories, not enough consumers. Property prices are still falling, savings rates are sky-high (20%+), and deflation has taken hold. Consumer prices are down, producer prices have been negative for years, and exports are doing all the heavy lifting — but even that’s cracking under U.S. tariffs. Instead of fixing the imbalance, Beijing is doubling down on the old playbook: more infrastructure, more state-led projects, little direct help for households. Economists say China needs a massive rebalancing — trillions in fiscal transfers to boost consumption and rebuild trust in the safety net. But that would mean loosening state control… and that’s not the direction things are heading. 📉 Without change, growth could slow to ~3% a year. 🧊 Deflation lingers. ⚙️ Factories hum, but consumers stay quiet. China’s still building the world’s factories — but it’s running out of people to sell to. Source: StockMarket.news
China is remonetizing gold
Gold Warrants on the Shanghai futures exchange are UP 25x since the beginning if the year. What is a Gold Warrant? A gold warrant on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) is an electronic certificate representing ownership of a specific quantity of physical gold stored in an SHFE-approved delivery warehouse. They are used as the basis for physical delivery against gold futures contracts. Each standard gold warrant typically represents 3,000 grams of gold that meets exchange standards for purity and origin. Why are they surging? Shanghai gold warrants are surging due to a combination of record-breaking safe-haven demand, robust central bank gold purchases (notably by the People’s Bank of China), and intense price volatility driving investor and arbitrage activity. Source: Jim Bianco, @AndreasSteno
US-China: some "positive" comments by Trump on Fox News overnight
“I'm not looking to destroy China” “China’s President XI is a smart man who is open for a deal” TRUMP CONFIRMS HIS MEETING WITH XI IS STILL ON. HE SAYS THINGS COULD CHANGE QUICKLY.
China’s gross domestic product expanded by 4.8% in the third quarter from a year ago, a slowdown from 5.2% in the second quarter, and the weakest in a year.
👉 Fixed-asset investment, which includes real estate, unexpectedly FELL by 0.5% in the first nine months of the year (Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.1% growth). This drop is alarming. The last time China recorded a contraction in fixed-asset investment was in 2020 during the pandemic, according to data going back to 1992 from Wind Information. The single-month September FAI declined by 9.8% based on estimates !!! 👉 Industrial production grew by 6.5% year-on-year in September, faster than the 5% forecast and 5.2% growth in the prior month. 👉 Retail sales rose 3% in September from a year ago, matching analyst forecasts. Source: CNBC, Augur Infinity
China Sept. used home prices -0.64% m/m; drop faster than Aug.
China Sept. new home prices -0.41% m/m; drop faster than Aug. China's largest asset by a factor of 2 continues to disintegrate... Source: zerohedge, GS
China's deflationary vortex is getting worse:
*CHINA SEPT. CONSUMER PRICES FALL 0.3% Y/Y; EST. -0.2% *CHINA SEPT. PRODUCER PRICES FALL 2.3% Y/Y; EST. -2.3%
“If we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford,” says Jim Farley, CEO at Ford
China added 295,000 industrial robots last year. The US? 34,000. The UK? 2,500. Source: Zane Hengsperger @zanehengsperger
As pointed out by Wall St Mav, Rare earth metals are NOT rare. Plenty of sources around the world.
95% of the refineries and smelters that process raw ore are in China. Even if rare earths are mined in USA, it all needs to be shipped to China. Issue is that trying to build a smelter in the USA or Europe seems impossible these days. The environment litigation would take years. Hence the scarcity issue. Source: CNBC, Wall St Mav
