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The government's view that it is homebuilders not homebuyers who are the "speculators" has big implications for where the property cycle goes next, and what that means for the economy.
It wasn't a surprise that the official PMIs fell sharply in April, but the charts are nonetheless quite dramatic.
Q1 growth was strong. The official leading indicator for March is pointing to a clear slowdown, but more gradually than the path suggested by equities.
The Politburo has gone a step further in supporting the economy, including real estate.
With the procyclicality that is built into YCC, not tightening when inflation is rising elsewhere and other central banks hiking necessitates the BOJ stepping up loosening. And that's exactly what the BOJ did at its monetary policy meeting today.
Korea's April business sentiment survey reaffirms recent themes for the economy. The cycle is now slowing, but not yet weak, and in fact on its own still strong enough to keep the BOK in tightening territory. At the same time inflation risks remain high. The central bank is likely to remain hawkish.
It would be tempting even to describe the labour market situation as goldilocks - except that the BOJ wants inflation to rise, and without that actually happening, the bank will keep policy loose, in turn putting pressure on the JPY to depreciate.
The BOJ's calculation of trimmed mean CPI moved up in March to 1.1% YoY, equal with the previous record high in the series last reached in 2008. The details though were a little soft.
The services PPI doesn't look as perky as some other inflation leads, but does indicate underlying inflation at least remaining around the current 1% for the next 2-3 months.
The government, fearing inflation or perhaps CNY weakness, is stepping up easing, but trying rather furtively.
Headline CPI in March rose 1.2% YoY. That leaves inflation below previous peaks in 2008, 2013 and 2017, but the headline CPI data suffer from a lot of distortions, and more accurate measures indicate inflation is already near highs not seen in the last thirty years.
External momentum has softened in recent months, but the downturn hasn't yet become very sharp. Data this week from across different economies suggests that there's no change yet in this picture.
The government's plan right now is to get the virus under control, and then guide companies back to work, thereby lifting the economy out of the covid shock without having to commit to a whole load of new 'stimulus'.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported today that the economy continued to recover in Q1, and overall was "stable". That's quite the positive spin.
Somewhat strangely, Chinese property prices in March continued to show signs of bottoming out.
The Bank of Korea decided today to raise the policy rate by a further 25bp, the fourth hike in this current cycle. From the perspective of BOK leadership - the bank currently being between governors - this was a mild surprise. But from the point of view of the economy, it was less unexpected. Activity has shown signs of peaking, but in recent weeks inflation has become more of a
YoY export growth is clearly slowing, and while the (somewhat patchy) leading indicators available for Chinese export growth suggest this weakening continues, the downside looks somewhat limited for now.
Even allowing for month-to-month volatility, Japanese machine orders in February were soft.
After the jump in February, it wasn't a surprise that labour market data softened in March. That just looks like a correction though
Export growth remained strong in March. Leading indicators are pointing to somewhat weaker growth ahead.