Despite all the talk of deleveraging, China did anything but according to its most recent data but the lagged impact of the tumbling credit impulse is starting to show up in the broader macro data. Despite the National Congress being under way (and recent credit spikes and positive PBOC hints) GDP growth limped lower to the expected +6.8% YoY, and fixed asset investment growth was the weakest in over 17 years...
Kyle Bass’s Hayman Capital has been having a rough year thanks to its widely publicized bet against China’s currency, which has more than reversed its 2016 decline – its largest annual drop since 1994 - as the People’s Bank of China has cracked down on potentially destabilizing capital outflows.
And we're back at all time highs.
One day after Bitcoin crashed on a massive surge in volume, following a report in China's Caixin website that Chinese authorities plan to shut local Bitcoin exchanges....
... there is still far more confusion than clarity about what is really going on in China: so far there has been no official statement from either the PBOC or China's financial regulator, confirming or denying the report, which spooked millions of Chinese bitcoin (and ethereum and litecoin) holders into dumping their digital currencies. As a reminder, this is the gist of the Caixin report:
China bears like Kyle Bass claimed victory last year after bets that the Chinese yuan would weaken paid off handsomely – particularly if they were supercharged by leverage. Hopefully, for their sake, yuan decided to lock in those gains early this year. Because since January, China’s currency has whipsawed higher, reversing most of its 2016 depreciation as the US dollar has endured a period of broad weakness, and Chinese policy makers have turned their attention to managing the currency’s valuation against a basket of currencies.