Wall Street’s playbook stipulates that every downtick in the market is just another buying opportunity. While that is most often true, peak margins, a slowing global economy and the bond bubble collapse makes this time more like 2008 than just a routine selloff.
In the vanguard of this coming market crash is China, whose make-pretend growth rate slid to 6.5% in the third quarter. This is the slowest pace of growth that the communist government has been willing to own up to since the last global financial crisis. Leaving one to conclude that the reality in China is far worse.
This sluggish growth and a near 30% plunge in Shanghai shares prompted swift action from the Chinese government, which announced plans to cut personal income taxes and cut the Reserve Requirement Ratio for the fourth time to encourage more leverage on top of the debt-disabled economy. The government has even bought ETF’s to prop of the sinking Chinese stock market. As a result, shares recently surged 4% in one day. However, more than half of those gains were quickly reversed the following day as investors took a sober look at whether the Chinese government is starting to lose its grip on the economy.
According to the Wall Street Journal, investments in Chinese factories and other fixed assets are at their lowest level in 18 years and China’s usually reliable household consumption is also beginning to decelerate sharply.
China’s economy has been on a downward trajectory in the past few months, with auto and retail sales on the decline. Fixed-asset investment rose a mere 5.3% in the January-August period from a year earlier. It was the most lackluster growth rate since 1992. This was mostly a planned slowdown; an edict from the government that realized its economy was beginning to resemble a Ponzi scheme.
What is very interesting is that this lethargic growth persisted even though companies have been gearing up for U.S. tariffs on Chinese products; hence, front-running purchases. Macquarie Capital Ltd. predicts that Chinese growth from exports will decline as much as 10% in the coming months.
