Asian manufacturing reports released today show both China’s and Japan’s PMI’s coming in at lower numbers.
China showed the quickest drop in total new work in three years and the lowest rate in operating conditions by Chinese manufacturers since March 2009. The numbers were partly driven by a steep fall in new export business prompting companies to cut their production output and lower their purchasing activity. The reduction in sales led to increased stockpiling of goods with sharp drops in both input costs and output charges.
Growth in Japan’s manufacturing sector slowed in September with production edging up only slightly to the weakest rate in a five-month period of expansion. At the same time, new export orders dropped at the fastest pace in over two and a half years, bring down employment and purchasing activity. Input costs rose marginally and output charges decreased.
Japan Moving at Even Pace
The large manufacturers' index for the September quarter came in at positive 12. In the previous three months, the key large manufacturers' index stood at 15 – its highest level since March 2014.
The Bank of Japan is pleased with the numbers but Japan's large manufacturers are not optimistic.
According to HSBC's Japanese economist, Izumi Devalier, "The BOJ pretty happy with these results. The deterioration in business sentiment was fully expected and it seems that the BOJ seems to have written off investor production and exports, at least in the near term so that's not the real surprise."
On Wall Street, reacted positively to the Asian economic reports with the Nasdaq Composite leading the gains with a jump of 2.3 percent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 closed up 15 and 1.9 percent respectively.