China's Economy on Fast Road to Recovery - AmCham South China Study Shows
PR Newswire
GUANGZHOU, China, Feb. 27, 2023
Large Reinvestments Postponed in 2022 But Appetite for Reinvestment Remains High
GUANGZHOU, China, Feb. 27, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Chamber of Commerce in South China (AmCham South China) today released its 2023 White Paper on the Business Environment in Chinaand 2023 Special Report on the State of Business in South China. The release was attended by over 200 government officials, business executives and members of media including over 40 foreign consulates mostly represented by their consuls general. Both publications can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.amcham-southchina.com/amcham/static/publications/publications.jsp
The 481 page bilingual White Paper on the Business Environment in China, now in its 16th year, is a well-structured and extensively-researched volume which presents a multifaceted and unbiased account of the business environment in China. The 141 page bilingual Special Report on the State of the Business in South China, our 19th such endeavor, provides a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of the business community and valuable insights into the development trends in South China. This year 210 companies were studied. It is important to note that the gathering of the study data was completed by December 15th, 2022, shortly before China ended its zero COVID policy. Therefore, the study data has not been impacted by immediate emotional impact of the policy change. The Chamber plans on conducting a mid-year study to determine the accurate and actual impact of the policy change. Both publications are researched and produced independently by AmCham South China and do not represent the opinions of the US or any other government or organization. AmCham South China does not receive any funds from any government in the production of these publications.
Over the past three years, the relentless pandemic put China through the wringer, but even with the zero-tolerance pandemic policy, in 2022 the country realized surprising achievements amid pervasive uncertainty and instability. In 2022, China's GDP growth stood at 3% year-on-year, a slowdown from 8.4% in 2021. At the same time, its trade surplus swelled to a record US$877.6 billion, with exports showing a 7% increase from 2021 to US$3.95 trillion despite weakening U.S. and European demand and draconian pandemic control measures. FDI into the world's second-largest country, in actual use, expanded 8% year-on-year to US$189.13 billion. Dr. Harley Seyedin, President of AmCham South China, winner of 2017 Oslo Business for Peace Award (together with Elon Musk, Durreen Shahnaz and Murad Al-Katib), which is awarded by an Award Committee of Nobel Laureates in Peace and Economics, said, "The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe but temporary blow to China's economy. With the elimination of the zero-tolerance policy and further opening up, the country is now headed towards recovery and will unleash substantial economic vitality greater and sooner than expected. Our studies released today, show that China's economy will be a crucial locomotive in promoting global economic growth in 2023."
According to the 2023 Special Report on the State of Business in South China, up to 97% of the companies report their operations have been impacted by visa and travel restrictions induced by COVID-19. Among them, 65% cancelled international events and meetings in China, 61% cancelled all international business travel, and 29% have had to suspend their investment projects. It is important to note that companies are cautious about high-volume reinvestments (more than US$250 million) but their appetite for exploring the Chinese market remains strong. 75% of the companies plan to reinvest in China in 2023 and they have set aside a whopping US$18.3 billion in cash for reinvestment over the next three to five years. "China's reopening will allow expatriate expert builders to return to China and help make investment projects now on hold, a reality," said Dr. Harley Seyedin.
Key Takeaways of the 2023 White Paperon the Business Environment in China and the 2023 Special Reporton the State of Business in South China:
Albeit a moderate decrease in the proportion of companies reporting to have increased headcount in 2022, most companies are upbeat about their employment expansion plans, with 44% of them planning to augment their headcount significantly or slightly in 2023.
More than half of the participating companies gained over 30% of their global revenue from China, an increase of 4%. 45% of the participating companies registered a significant or slight increase in their revenue from China, including 43% of American companies and 49% of manufacturing companies.
Companies' profitability shows signs of improvement in 2022. 88% of the participating companies are reported to have gained profits in China, an increase of 6%. Up to 90% of American companies have achieved profitability. Moreover, 54% of those who are profitable in China reported to have met their budget expectations.
There is a greater sense of optimism among the participating companies towards their expected time to reach profitability. A vast majority of them expect to attain profitability within two years, while only 4% believe that it will take over six years to reach that goal, three times less than that of a year earlier.
China is believed to enjoy a high return on investment (ROI) with 76% of the participating companies reporting a positive overall ROI in China. 49% of the companies consider their overall ROI in China to be higher than their global overall ROI.
Although the confidence of American companies in the business outlook in China oscillates to some extent, over 50% of them still stay sanguine about the Chinese market.
China is still deemed as the most attractive destination for investment. More than 90% of the participating companies select China as one of the most important investment destinations. Although the proportion of foreign companies that regard China as the first choice for investment has declined for the second consecutive year, more than 50% still list China as the top three investment destinations.
The investment enthusiasm of companies is on an upward trajectory, with four-fifths of companies that actually reinvested in China in 2022.
Compared with the past year, more companies chose to reinvest less than US$250 million in China in 2022. However, companies are cautious about large investments. Specifically, while 10% of the companies had each budgeted to reinvest US$250 million or more in China in 2022, only 5% actually reinvested that amount in the same year. But American companies and companies engaged in consumption products and services take an optimistic view of very large reinvestment projects, accounting for the highest proportion and reaching 7% and 8% respectively.
In 2022, 74% of the participating companies chose not to shift their investments out of China. Not a single company has intention to leave China entirely.
Most companies still consider China as a critical part in their future strategic development plans. 75% of the participating companies plan to reinvest in China in 2023, including 68% of American companies that are determined to dig deeper into the Chinese market.
It is estimated that companies will reserve US$18.3 billion from profits for reinvestment in China in 2023 and the next three to five years, a sharp fall of approximately 30.98% compared with the previous year.
Companies are slowing down their business expansion in China, with 3% fewer companies (69%) planning to expand over the next three years.
Guangzhou has been recognized as the top preferred investment destination in China six years in a row, followed by Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Beijing.
Research this year reveals a trace of pessimism over the business environment in South China. 9% fewer companies rate the business environment as "excellent" or "good" while 11% more companies see a deterioration in the business environment. Rising operation costs and rising labor costs are identified as the two biggest challenges that companies face in South China in 2022.
The trade volume between US and China hit a new record high of US$690.6 billion in 2022. Less than 30% of the companies are bullish about the bilateral relationship in 2023, a drop of 13%. 8% fewer Chinese companies (32%) are upbeat about the future ties while 26% more American companies (44%) express their pessimism.
White Paper on the Business Environment in Chinaand Special Report on the State of Business in South China
The White Paperon the Business Environment in China offers a summary of China's impressive accomplishments since China's "opening-up" and examines the key influences on the business environment in present-day China, such as national policy initiatives and the global economic crisis.
The Special Report on the State of Business in South China is a quantitative study of the business environment, conducted for consecutive years by AmCham South China. Each year, AmCham's member and non-member companies participate in AmCham's State of Business study, results of which will be garnered and edited into a separate publication.
About the American Chamber of Commerce in South China
The American Chamber of Commerce in South China (AmCham South China) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating bilateral trade between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Accredited in 1995 by the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington DC, AmCham South China represents more than 2,300 corporate and individual members, is governed by a fully-independent Board of Governors elected from its membership, and provides dynamic, on-the-ground support for American and international companies doing business in South China. Over the past decade, AmCham South China has hosted on average each year more than 10,000 business executives and government leaders from around the world at its briefings, seminars, committee meetings and social gatherings. All AmChams in China are independently governed and represent member companies in their respective regions.
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…
Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.
“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””
“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”
That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:
“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”
That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in “This Is Nuts:”
“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”
Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.
Birds Of A Feather
There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.
“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”
The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”
“Standard Deviation” is defined as:
“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”
In plain English,this meansthat the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.
A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”
“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.
Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia
With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.
Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.
The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.
In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.
It’s All Relative
We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.
Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.
The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.
Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.
Not A Recommendation
There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.
Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.
However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Credit: Impact Journals
BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals.
Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”
Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Agingteam.
About Aging-US:
Agingpublishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Agingis indexed and archived byPubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism
One month after the inflation outlook tracked by the NY Fed Consumer Survey extended their late 2023 slide, with 3Y inflation expectations in January sliding to a record low 2.4% (from 2.6% in December), even as 1 and 5Y inflation forecasts remained flat, moments ago the NY Fed reported that in February there was a sharp rebound in longer-term inflation expectations, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% at the three-year ahead horizon, and jumping to 2.9% from 2.5% at the five-year ahead horizon, while the 1Y inflation outlook was flat for the 3rd month in a row, stuck at 3.0%.
The increases in both the three-year ahead and five-year ahead measures were most pronounced for respondents with at most high school degrees (in other words, the "really smart folks" are expecting deflation soon). The survey’s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) decreased at all horizons, while the median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—declined at the one- and three-year ahead horizons and remained unchanged at the five-year ahead horizon.
Going down the survey, we find that the median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3% for gas; decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.8% for the cost of medical care (its lowest reading since September 2020); decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.8% for the cost of a college education; and surprisingly decreased by 0.3 percentage point for rent to 6.1% (its lowest reading since December 2020), and remained flat for food at 4.9%.
We find the rent expectations surprising because it is happening just asking rents are rising across the country.
At the same time as consumers erroneously saw sharply lower rents, median home price growth expectations remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive month at 3.0%.
Turning to the labor market, the survey found that the average perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job separations increased, while the perceived likelihood of finding a job (in the event of a job loss) declined. "The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months also increased, by 1.8 percentage points to 19.5%."
Mean unemployment expectations - or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 36.1%, the lowest reading since February 2022. Additionally, the median one-year-ahead expected earnings growth was unchanged at 2.8%, remaining slightly below its 12-month trailing average of 2.9%.
Turning to household finance, we find the following:
The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.1%. The series has been moving within a narrow range of 2.9% to 3.3% since January 2023, and remains above the February 2020 pre-pandemic level of 2.7%.
Median household spending growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%. The increase was driven by respondents with a high school degree or less.
Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased to 9.3% from 8.9%.
The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 26.1%, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 30%.
Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated somewhat with fewer respondents reporting being better off than a year ago. Year-ahead expectations also deteriorated marginally with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be better off and a slightly larger share of respondents expecting to be worse off a year from now.
The mean perceived probability that U.S. stock prices will be higher 12 months from now increased by 1.4 percentage point to 38.9%.
At the same time, perceptions and expectations about credit access turned less optimistic: "Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting tighter conditions and a smaller share reporting looser conditions compared to a year ago."
Also, a smaller percentage of consumers, 11.45% vs 12.14% in prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payment over the next three months
Last, and perhaps most humorous, is the now traditional cognitive dissonance one observes with these polls, because at a time when long-term inflation expectations jumped, which clearly suggests that financial conditions will need to be tightened, the number of respondents expecting higher stock prices one year from today jumped to the highest since November 2021... which incidentally is just when the market topped out during the last cycle before suffering a painful bear market.
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