Surprisingly strong Chinese trade data for January are looking like an outlier, given this week’s soggy numbers from Japan and Korea
A week is a long time in global trade, apparently. Weak data from Japan and Korea this week suggest stronger-than-expected January trade numbers from China released last week were a blip. For investors focused on the outcome of U.S.-China trade talks, the message is clear: Pay more attention to the global slump that’s already under way.
The discrepancy between Chinese and Japanese trade data is one bad sign for global economy optimists. bodog online casino Chinese statisticians recorded a 2% month-over-month fall in imports from Japan in January, while Japan recorded a 31.7% fall in exports to China over the same period. That’s the biggest divergence between the two data sets in eight years.
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