Market Update – 22nd January 2019 – Chinese Economy ‘Slowing’? Not Really, It’s All In The Numbers

Please note that the commentary below is factual information provided to a group of readers as a web blog, and where an opinion is expressed by the author, it is GENERAL ADVICE only.

No report from me yesterday, however to quickly recap; not a great deal happened over the weekend or for that matter overnight. AUD/USD and AUD/EUR are the decliners down around half a percent since Friday morning, while AUD/GBP moved higher as continued Brexit shenanigans keep U.K traders on their toes. The AUD is unchanged vs. the Kiwi and Japanese Yen.

Equities and Commodities prices, namely metal prices continued to perform well through last week as signs U.S/China trade tensions are slowly dissolving, however growth headwinds within the Chinese economy persist and this was highlighted by yesterday’s slowest pace of GDP growth since 2009.

But as they say ‘it’s all in the numbers’, and percentages can deceive. GDP growth in China in 2009 was around 9% and GDP was at 5T USD, so in nominal terms China grew GDP by 500B USD in 2009. Today China’s GDP stands at around 12.5T USD with GDP growth at 6.5%. Nominally that means China grew GDP by a little over 800B USD in the past 12 months. The bigger China’s economy gets naturally the slower they’ll grow. However consider China is a country of nearly 1.4b people, there is still decades of pent up demand within the economy.

AUD EXCHANGE RATES:

AUD/USD – 0.7128

AUD/GBP – 0.5521

AUD/EUR – 0.6265

AUD/NZD – 1.0606

AUD/JPY – 78.202

USD/BTC – $3,520

OTHER MARKETS:

All Ords (XAO) – 5,953

Gold – A$1,786/oz

Silver –  A$21.28/oz

WTI – US$54.20/barrel

DATA RELEASES TODAY:

USD – Bank Holiday – MLK Day

GBP – Average Earnings Index at 8.30pm