Jul 31 ,2023
Synopsis:
Asian equities advanced Monday. Nikkei rallied to a four-week high. Hang Seng extended last week's rally, led by tech and property gains. Mainland also gained. Korea closed higher, while Taiex underperformed. ASX flat. Southeast Asia mostly higher. India trading higher. S&P 500 futures flat. Europe opened mixed. 10Y Treasury yields up. JGBs curve steepening with 10y yields highest since June 2014. US dollar softer against Aussie and NZD, and stronger against yen. Crude pulling lower, industrial metals and precious metals lower.
China's official PMIs showed manufacturing remained in contraction but beat estimates. Markets were buoyed by Beijing's latest slew of supportive measures to boost consumption and stabilize housing market. State Council released a wide-ranging policy document containing some recently announced consumption-related initiatives. Top-tier cities, including Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, have signaled easing restrictions on property sector. Meanwhile China Beige Book survey that showed almost every major sector saw weakening in both revenue and profit margin compared with June as consumers cut back on spending on everything but travel and restaurants.
Japan industrial production rebounded amid pickup in auto output. However, retail sales swung lower amid weaker apparel spending. Most economists see BOJ YCC tweak as preparation for policy normalization. RBA policy decision will be a close call. New Zealand business confidence lifted to highest since Sep-2021 as inflation expectations continue to ease. Thailand returns to current account surplus in June. Philippines finance secretary says monetary authorities do not need to match 25 bp rate hike by Fed.
Toyota (7203.JP) says company will strengthen its development of EV technology in China, meanwhile plans to increase Japan domestic production by 30% to 880k units from August to October. Country Garden (2007.HK) urged "guidance and support from the government" as it expected to post loss due to fall in profit margin, higher impairment provisions. Shimao Group (813.HK) resumed trading in HK following a 16-month halt while shares slumped as much as 67%. Evergrande Group (3333.HK) said winding-up petition hearing adjourned to 30-Oct and shares will remain suspended, meanwhile huge price swings for Evergrande New Energy Vehicle (708.HK) that shares surged by 60% after plunged almost 70% last Friday.
Digest:
China manufacturing PMI remains in contraction:
Official manufacturing PMI was 49.3 in July, almost in line with consensus 49.2. Follows 49.0 in June, remaining in contraction for the fourth straight month. Output remained marginally positive. Declines in new orders eased though exports extended declines. Weakness in employment and finished goods inventories were little changed. Following recent attention on inflation weakness, input prices turned positive for the first time since March, while output prices saw markedly narrower declines. By industry size, large firms continued marginal expansion, contrasting with declines among medium and small firms. NBS noted that with US and Euro manufacturing PMIs negative, some respondents cited external headwinds and insufficient demand remains the main problem. Nonmanufacturing PMI continued to soften steadily to 51.5 from 53.2, expanding for the seventh month though latest reading was the weakest in that stretch. Construction activity slowed sharply to 51.2 from 55.7, and down from its peak of 65.6 in March. Services growth eased moderately. Composite PMI was left at 51.1 vs prior 52.3 to mark a relatively sluggish start to Q3. Bloomberg cited China Beige Book survey that showed almost every major sector saw weakening in both revenue and profit margin compared with June as consumers cut back on spending on everything but travel and restaurants.
China announces more measures to boost consumption:
China's StateCouncil issued twenty measures to restore and expand consumption as Beijing's latest effort to spur economic recovery and boost investor optimism. Measures are covering from automobile to real estate to services sector, which contain many recently announced consumption-related initiatives. Many focus on removing restrictions on consumption. Local regions encouraged to provide subsidies for home appliances purchases and home renovation materials in rural areas. Meanwhile Bloomberg noted authorities have stopped short of providing direct fiscal support to consumers and companies to increase spending. Separately Xinhua reported NDRC on Sunday outlined six tasks, including intensifying macro-policy regulation, promoting consumption and increasing investment, supporting the development of the real economy, deepening reform and opening up. Echoes prior pledges to make policies to boost consumption and a slew of new measures would be introduced to lift sales of cars, electronic products and rural consumption. Also vowed to tackle youth unemployment and boost wages for low-income earners.
Biden to sign executive order restricting US tech investments in China by mid-August:
Bloomberg citing people with knowledge reported that US President Biden is planning to sign an executive order to limit critical US technology investments in China as early as second week of August. Order would focus on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, adding it won't affect any existing investments and would only prohibit certain transactions. Other deals will have to be disclosed to US government. The restrictions won't take effect until next year and involve a comment period that stakeholders can weigh in. Treasury Secretary Yellen said measures would not be broad controls that will have fundamental impact on China investment climate and were not retaliatory actions. Move forms part of broader Washington effort to limit Beijing's capabilities to develop next-generation technologies. Earlier Commerce Secretary Raimondo said Biden administration was seeking to carefully target US export controls to China, but measures will "deny some revenue to American companies" (Reuters)
Japan industrial production, retail sales finish Q2 higher:
Industrial production rose 2.0% m/m in June, compared to consensus 2.4%, rebounding from a 2.2% drop in the previous month. Strength led by autos, electronics parts & devices, general purpose machinery. Aggregate shipments logged somewhat softer growth, though still left inventories marginally lower. Q2 output expanded 1.3% q/q, marking the first increase in three quarters. METI survey projections point to a 0.2% decline in July, and 1.1% growth in August. At face value, this implies a moderately positive trajectory for Q3, though adjusted METI forecast for July came in at minus 2.7%, which would leave a negative quarterly path. Retail sales fell 0.4% m/m vs expected 0.7% decline, following 1.4% rise in May. Growth led mainly by autos, somewhat offset by weaker apparel. Q2 aggregate extended gains, though slowed after a relatively strong Q1, suggesting impetus from consumer goods demand moderated. Recent attention focused more on strength of consumer services recovery after Covid restrictions were lifted. Latest tertiary sector activity sector report for May showed broad-ranging personal services tracking marginally weaker in Q2.
Most see BOJ YCC tweak as preparation for policy normalization:
Majority of economist takeaways following the BOJ meeting suggested the announced tweaks amounted to a de facto widening of the yield band (generally consistent with prior calls for a 100 bp range) and signals the first step toward policy normalization. Noted the new 100 bp effective upper limit also in line with brokerage estimates for 10y fair value. However, they debated whether the BOJ's underlying tone was actually hawkish -- as Governor Ueda still lacks confidence in a reacceleration of inflation -- prompting some thoughts this move was meant to further enhance sustainability of easing policies. Going forward, views diverge on BOJ's next move. Barclays was most aggressive with calls to remove YCC in October. Goldman Sachs said BOJ to return to wait-and-see mode for now. HSBC expects YCC to be removed in 1Q24. Deutsche Bank still looks for YCC to be scrapped in April 2024 after confirming next year's shunto results. UBS sees the possibility of a near term rise in the yield target to 25 or 50 bp, though looks for BOJ to remain on hold until October next year (to wait out US recession risks from Q4 and Fed shift to rate cuts).
Notable Gainers:
+12.2% 6862.HK (Haidilao International Holding): reports preliminary H1 net profit cont ops of no less than CNY2.20B vs year-ago CNY72M
+9.9% 8015.JP (Toyota Tsusho): reports Q1 revenue ¥2.541T, +7% vs year-ago ¥2.376T, operating income ¥113.73B, +11% vs year-ago ¥102.33B; raises FY guidance
+6.8% 6501.JP (Hitachi): reports Q1 revenue ¥2.322T vs FactSet ¥2.145T, operating income ¥130.55B vs FactSet ¥130.51B
+5.6% 6701.JP (NEC Corp): reports Q1 revenue ¥706.54B vs FactSet ¥680.98B
+4.6% 011790.KS (SKC Co.): to collaborate with Toyota Tsusho, establish long-term supply of high-quality copper foil in North America
Notable Decliners:
-65.4% 813.HK (Shimao Group Holdings): fulfils resumption guidance; resumes trading
-7.3% 6954.JP (FANUC Corp): reports Q1 revenue ¥201.77B vs FactSet ¥211.81B, operating income ¥32.59B vs FactSet ¥43.49B; guides FY revenue ¥750.30B vs prior guidance ¥819.50B and FactSet ¥851.49B
-4.4% 6861.JP (KEYENCE): reports Q1 revenue ¥222.27B vs FactSet ¥230.73B, operating income ¥111.28B vs FactSet ¥124.25B
-2% 762.HK (China Unicom (Hong Kong)): announces resignation of Liu Liehong as chairman and CEO
-2% 9433.JP (KDDI Corp): reports Q1 revenue ¥1.333T vs StreetAccount ¥1.371T, operating income ¥266.67B vs StreetAccount ¥293.48B; Toyota Motor to sell 64.1M shares in KDDI Holdings at ¥3,900/share, or total of ¥250B
Data:
Economic:
China
July official Manufacturing PMI y/y 49.3 versus consensus 49 and 49 in prior month
July Non Manufacturing PMI y/y 51.5 versus consensus 52.5 and 53.2 in prior month
Japan
June Industrial Production m/m (preliminary) +2% versus consensus +2.1% and (2.2%) in prior month
June Retail Sales y/y +5.9% versus consensus +5.9% and +5.8% in prior month
June Retail Sales m/m (0.4%) versus +1.4% in prior month
June Housing Starts y/y unknown versus consensus +1.5% and +3.5% in prior month
Australia
July MI Inflation Gauge m/m +0.8% versus +0.1% in prior month
June Private Sector Credit m/m +0.2% versus +0.4% in prior month
New Zealand
July ANZ Business Confidence (13.1%) versus (18%) in prior month
Markets:
Nikkei: 412.99 or +1.26% to 33172.22
Hang Seng: 162.38 or +0.82% to 20078.94
Shanghai Composite: 15.11 or +0.46% to 3291.04
Shenzhen Composite: 16.88 or +0.82% to 2069.51
ASX200: 6.80 or +0.09% to 7410.40
KOSPI: 24.26 or +0.93% to 2632.58
SENSEX: 231.77 or +0.35% to 66391.98
Currencies:
$-¥: +0.96 or +0.68% to 142.1210
$-KRW: +0.43 or +0.03% to 1273.7100
A$-$: +0.00 or +0.57% to 0.6691
$-INR: (0.03) or (0.04%) to 82.2630
$-CNY: (0.00) or (0.04%) to 7.1461
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