CHINA: THE LEADING INDICATOR OF LEADING INDICATORS
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
We’ve often referred to China as a leading indicator of equities over the last few years. Some sell side analysts have caught onto the trend as well (which likely means it will stop working now). CitiGroup highlights China’s emergence as the “leading indicator of leading indicators” (via FT Alphaville):
“China is the biggest emerging market in the world, currently accounting for 18.6% of the MSCI GEMs index. We have noticed how, since the end of the last bull market in 2007, the Chinese market has often seemed to reach an inflexion point before other leading global market indices. As equity markets should act as a leading indicator of broader economic growth trends, it seems, therefore, that the Chinese equity market has recently become ‘the leading indicator of the leading indicators’. Given that the local Shanghai Composite index and MSCI China have both rebounded by 13-15% from their recent lows and our China strategist, Minggao Shen, has just turned more bullish on the market1, these events are a positive mix for global emerging markets as a whole. This is, therefore, a good time to consider the Chinese market’s role as a signaling mechanism for GEMs as a whole.”
