The Chinese Consumer Price Index and Producer Price Index, released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, have arrived:
- March PPI +8.3 pct from a year ago vs 8.8% prior and 7.9% consensus.
- March PPI +1.1 pct from the previous month.
- March CPI (YoY): 1.5% (expected 1.2% vs previous 0.9%).
AUD/USD is under some slight pressure, losing an additional 0.09% from the pre-data -0.2% after falling to a fresh low of 0.7436.
The concerns here are stagflation in the Chinese economy which is hurting AUD that trades as a proxy for business related to China.
Shanghai has been under lockdown since 28 March. The city of 26 million people reported 1,006 confirmed infections and almost 24,000 asymptomatic cases over the previous 24 hours with the 23,107 total reported for China on April 7. The most recent hard numbers on China’s economy refer to January and February which are dated given the war in Ukraine, oil prices surging as well as a new wave of covid-19 cases. Continually high PPI and growing raw material prices will be weighing on firms.
