China comes back to life, experts calculate losses

12 בפבר׳ 2020

China yesterday began to actively restore economic and industrial activity in the country. Judging by official figures, the epidemic has begun to decline, so there is reason to believe that the worst is over.

In this light, yesterday's growth in demand for risky assets is generally explainable. Perhaps the global economy in general, and China in particular, will get off easily. At least Bloomberg analysts believe that the impact of the epidemic on the economy will be extremely short-term. Although they note, in the first quarter of China's GDP growth will slow down to 4.5%.

In general, the uncertainty with economic damage is likely to be a factor restraining another bout of unbridled optimism in the financial markets.

The fact is that its scope can be more serious and tangible. For example, Simon McAdam from Capital Economics believes that the coronavirus will cost the world economy $ 280 billion and ultimately lead to the fact that the world economy in the first quarter of 2020 will not grow for the first time since 2009.

JPMorgan analysts expect China’s GDP to grow by only 1% y/y in the first quarter (they predicted an increase of 6% y/y before the epidemic). Goldman Sachs expects the coronavirus to subtract 2% from the global GDP.

And Morgan Stanley recently proposed how to measure the real extent of the downtime of the Chinese economy - by analyzing the level of air pollution. According to their calculations, air pollution in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Chengdu is only 20-50% of historical values. This may mean that human activity here (transportation and industrial production) is only 50-80% of the usual.

In general, the optimists or pessimists will determine the dynamics of prices in financial markets on who ultimately turns out to be right. Uncertainty just hangs in the air, which means that for now, it is better to trade inside the day with small stops. We will look for points to buy gold and the Japanese yen intraday. We will sell oil at the time of its growth.

Also, we will buy the British pound. Yesterday's data on GDP (+ 1.1% y/y against the forecast of 0.8% y/y) and industrial production (+ 0.1% against the forecast + 0.3%) did not give rise to sales and important support 1,29. So, a rebound up is quite likely.