East Asia Econ

It still isn't even at 0.2% YoY, but rental CPI is now rising the fastest since the 1990s, which is pulling up imputed rent too. Together, they account for almost 20% of the basket.

It is remarkable, given the big mortgage rate cuts and everything else thrown at the property market, that buyer sentiment just gets worse and worse.

The cheap JPY isn't boosting Japan's merchandise exports, but it has helped with a sharp recovery in tourism, even though arrivals from China remain subdued.

The recent recovery in the mfg cycle has been underwhelming. One reason is its narrowness: sales at TSMC are up, but for the rest of the listed are flat.

The shunto is important for regular workers, but part-time workers are now also getting decent pay rises, a real sign that the labour market is tightening.

The cheap JPY is boosting Japan's tourist inflows, but there continue to be no signs of the currency helping merchandise exports.

China doesn't release detailed GDP by expenditure data, but the available snippets show Q1 outperformance was due to net exports.

Consumer sentiment does remain low in China, but it is encouraging that income growth has picked up, while the savings rate is coming down.

There's just no floor for property. Starts fell again in March and are now 65% below the 2020 peak, and barely above the low of late 2008.

There's a growing divergence between ferrous and non-ferrous metals, and that shows the contrast between weak property and strong manufacturing activity.

Official data show property price deflation isn't worsening. Private measures suggest the same thing, though anecdotes suggest actual market conditions are much weaker

Korean data today continue the clear turn in regional import prices of recent months. This will matter for inflation, even in China.

Today's PBC action to drain liquidity for the second consecutive month via the MLF follows a big run-up in 2H23. Still, it does show that the bank remains a cautious easer.

The BOJ uses machine orders as a lead for machinery investment. Data show Feb was stronger, but not by enough to lift the 3mma by much.

Wage growth did slow in 2023, but that looks cyclical, not breaking the higher rate of trend growth that's been apparent since the pandemic.

We can be increasingly confident that mortgage lending has bottomed out. But there aren't any signs of a rebound.

Exports rose MoM in March, while imports were weak. Outside concern about China's trade surplus is going to intensify.

Today's Q1 BOJ consumer survey shows sentiment about income rising to the highest level in 20 years.

Demographics are really having a big impact on the composition of employment.

Data today show Korea employment did tick down in March, but the unemployment rate remaining below 3%, the lowest since the 1990s.

China should be close to an inflection in PPI, but the turn didn't happen in March. PPI fell 2.8% YoY, a rate of deflation that hasn't changed much since August 2023.

The pick-up in core CPI from late 2023 hasn't persisted, dropping back to +0.7% in March. That is consistent with the post-covid performance, and a step down from the pre-2020 average of nearly 2%.

Data for the first 10 days of April don't show an acceleration of the mild export recovery of the last few months. That matters for the BOK when domestic demand is also weak.

YoY export growth did accelerate in March to almost 20%, the highest since early 2022. But in level terms, the recovery remains rather sluggish.

If there was supposed to be goods price disinflation in Japan, it didn't last long, and didn't make much difference to the level of either import or producer prices.