1. CBN China High-Frequency Economic Activity Index
On May 7, 2024, the CBN China High Frequency Economic Activity Index (YHEI) was 0.89, down 0.09 from April 30. Affected by the May Day holiday, in the week ended May 7, the industry-related indicators "coastal coal freight index" and "import dry bulk freight index" fell by 0.03 and 0.13 respectively, and the "30 cities commercial housing sales index" fell by 0.22 to 0.34 in the service industry-related indicators.
Second, the overall judgment of the weekly situation
Billet prices continued to move higher this week, rising 1.16% in the week ended May 7, 6.71% over the past month, and 0.86% over the same period last year. Cement prices have retreated, falling 0.12 percent in the week ended May 7, rising 2.89 percent over the past month and down 20.02 percent from the same period last year. Thermal coal prices have fallen by 0.28% over the past month and by 2.73% from the same period last year.
In the week ended May 7, the central bank withdrew a net of 446 billion yuan through the open market. Bank overnight rates fell 20 basis points in the week ended May 7, rising 13 basis points over the past month and 76 basis points over the same period last year. The seven-day repo rate has fallen 20 basis points over the past week, up 5 basis points over the past month and 15 basis points over the same period last year.
According to data released by the People's Bank of China, at the end of April, the scale of official foreign exchange reserves was 3,200.831 billion US dollars, down 1.38% from the previous month; The size of foreign exchange reserves denominated in SDRs was 2,428.682 billion SDRs, down 0.92% from the previous month. At the end of April, the yield on 2-year and 10-year US Treasury bonds rose to 5.04% and 4.69% respectively from 4.59% and 4.20% in the previous month, and the decline in bond prices was an important reason for the decline in the size of official foreign exchange reserves at the end of April. At the end of April, the U.S. dollar index rose to 106.34 from 104.51 at the end of March, and other important currencies depreciated against the U.S. dollar, which was also one of the reasons for the month-on-month decline in foreign exchange reserves denominated in US dollars. At the end of April, the size of official gold reserves continued to expand, from 72.74 million ounces at the end of the previous month to 72.80 million ounces.
According to the data of the General Administration of Customs, in April, the trade balance rose to 72.350 billion US dollars from 58.551 billion US dollars in March, a year-on-year decrease of 14.90%, and the decline was 9.12 percentage points smaller than that in March. Among them, the year-on-year growth rate of export value and import value accelerated by 9.00 and 10.30 percentage points respectively from March to 1.50% and 8.40%, both of which entered the positive year-on-year growth range in the same month.
In April, the manufacturing PMI was 50.4%, although it fell by 0.4 percentage points from the previous month, it still remained above the boom and wither line, and the manufacturing industry continued to expand. Specifically, the demand-side related indicators of the new orders index and the new export orders index were 51.1% and 50.6% respectively, both lower than in March, but they are still in the expansion range, and the demand faced by manufacturing enterprises continues to recover. The production index, a supply-side indicator, rose to 52.9% from 52.2% in March, indicating an acceleration in production activity. In April, the purchase prices of major raw materials accelerated, and their index increased by 3.5 percentage points from March to 54.0%; The factory price index rose to 49.1% from 47.4% in the previous month. In April, the non-manufacturing business activity index fell by 1.8 percentage points from March to 51.2%.
3. Weekly data (2024.5.1-2024.5.7)
1. Central bank monetary operations
2. Interest rates and social financing
3. Corporate sector
1) Secondary sector
2) Shipping
3) Real estate market
4. Global perspective
(Source of the title map of this article: Yicai)
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Text | Li Jiayi is a researcher at the China Business Research Institute
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(This article is from Yicai)