According to the latest reports on Chinese industrial production and retail sales released by the national statistical agency of China, the 2 sectors showed a slowdown over the first 2 months of the new year relative to the same period of 2015, Market Leader reports. The actual figures turned out the be worse than expected.
In particular, China’s industrial production in January-February 2016 increased by 5,4% as opposed to +6,1% seen in December 2015. As for the retail sales figures, they only gained 10.2% over the same reporting period against December’s 10,7%.
According to the analysts participating in the recent survey by Bloomberg, the average forecast for industrial production and retail sales reached 5.6% and 11% respectively. Still, the Chinese statistical agency puts the blame for this slowdown on seasonality. At the same time, weaker global demand and worsening situation in the local steel industry were extra factors contributing to the slowdown.
FOREX
Masterforex-V Academy reports that the Chinese Yuan is trying to recover a bit, which means USDJPY is retracing. At this point, the currency pair is trading below 6.50, the experts say. It has already broken a major level of support – the local low of 6.4869 – and is moving closer to another key level of support, which is 6.4675. The strongest levels of resistance are located at the top of the descending MF sloping channel an MF pivot 6.5540.
