China Reports Slowest GDP Growth On Record, As Retail Sales, Industrial Output And Fixed Investment All Beat

The Chinese goalseek-o-tron was in perfect working order on Monday morning, when moments ago Beijing reported that China's Q2 Y/Y GDP rose at 6.2%, once again precisely as consensus had expected, down from 64% in Q1 and the lowest since "modern" records started to be kept 27 years ago in 1992, dipping below even the financial crisis low of 6.4$

Additionally, 2Q cumulative GDP rose 6.3% y/y, also matching the consensus estimate, and down from 6.4% in Q1.

"We expect Beijing to ramp up stimulus measures in the second half despite more limited policy room, though markets should not put too high expectations on the scale and duration of these stimulus measures,” Nomura's China economist Lu Ting wrote in a recent research note. “Domestic policies will to a large extent be dependent on the U.S.-China trade tensions.”

The disappointing GDP print comes just day after another miss, this time in the value of exports, which sharnk by 1.3% in dollar terms in June, after inching up in May despite the tensions with the US.

Property investment moderated to 10.9 per cent in the first six months, compared with growth of 11.2 per cent in the year to May. Strong property sales helped brighten the economy into April, but the sector lost momentum in the second quarter.

But while the record Chinese slowdown was widely as expected, there was an unexpected silver lining to the lowest Chinese GDP print on record, as all three core June economic indicators - retail sales, industrial output and fixed investment - beat sharply lowered expectations, to wit:

Read the entire article