After yesterday's speech by Janet Yellen which signaled a path of steady interest rate increases and was perceived as hawkish, the dollar rebounded, Asian shares slipped and government bond yields jumped to multi-week highs on Thursday.
Submitted by Saxo Bank's Martin O'Rourke via TradingFloor.com,
Nearly three years into a "war on pollution", in which large swathes of northern China are periodically engulfed in thick, toxic smog, with dangerous air quality readings in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin and Xian forcing many people to stay in doors and shutting down industries, causing ship traffic jams in local ports, and even adversely impacting the local economy, China has realizing that it needs to take more "innovative" measure to make sure it does not lose this particular war.
While it will hardly come as a surprise to China watchers who have for years mocked China's cooked "data", overnight the state-run People's Daily reported that the severely impacted by the commodity crunch of the past 2 years rust-belt province of Liaoning fabricated fiscal numbers from 2011 to 2014, raising fresh doubts about the accuracy of China’s economic data just two days ahead of the release of China's GDP report.
The city of Shenyang in Liaoning province of China