Monday, July 1, 2024

5 Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day: Asia

Good morning. Manufacturing worries emerge in the world's biggest economies. Wall Street ponders a Donald Trump presidency. China's best-sel

Good morning. Manufacturing worries emerge in the world's biggest economies. Wall Street ponders a Donald Trump presidency. China's best-selling car brand boosts sales. Here's what's moving markets. —  Kristine Aquino

Factory woes 

US factory activity shrank for a third straight month in June, data showed on Monday. That came just hours after a similar measure for China indicated the strongest reading since May 2021, though that result was tempered by a gauge of company managers' expectations for future output falling to the lowest since late 2019. Equities globally took the reports in stride, with the MSCI World Index climbing along with the US dollar. Meanwhile, declines in developed-market bonds sent yields higher. 

Trump trades

Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are among those taking a fresh look at how a Donald Trump victory in November could play out in the bond market. Strategists are urging clients to position for sticky inflation and higher long-term bond yields, citing potential policies that could lead to fiscal expansion. Their views come as the US Supreme Court ruled that Trump has some immunity from criminal charges for trying to reverse the 2020 election results, which all but ensures a trial won't happen before the November election.

Brain tech

China plans to task a committee with drafting standards to guide the use of brain-computer interfaces, signaling it intends to accelerate the development of similar technologies to rival western competitors like Elon Musk-founded Neuralink. China will invite relevant industrial and technical experts from enterprises, research institutes, universities and other industries to work on a series of standards including brain information encoding and decoding, data communication, and data visualization, according to the plan issued on Monday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Car boom 

China's best-selling car brand, BYD, sold nearly 1 million models in the second quarter, according to sales data compiled by Bloomberg News. The sales were driven in part by the company's move to reduce prices across most models earlier this year, sacrificing profitability, to target gasoline models made by foreign brands. In terms of purely electric vehicles, the Shenzhen-based auto giant's quarterly sales of 426,000 units put it within striking distance of overtaking Tesla as the biggest seller of EVs globally again.

Eyeing India

More global funds will register in India and directly buy the nation's bonds once its weight in JPMorgan's emerging market index rises to as much as 5% by October, overseas investors told the US bank. Several clients of JPMorgan who have been taking proxy exposures to India via instruments such as total returns swaps and supranational bonds will now enter the South Asian market directly, they said in a clients' call with the bank on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. India got added to JPMorgan's flagship emerging market bond index on Friday with an initial weight of 1%, to be increased to 10% eventually over a 10-month period.

What we've been reading

Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: 

And finally, here's what Tatiana is interested in today

The latest Atlanta Fed GDP estimate for the US economy is pointing to a second consecutive quarter of growth trending below potential. If sustained, this will serve as a reality check for US stocks, whose performance has beaten most major assets worldwide in the first half.

Atlanta's GDPNow projection for growth has slipped to about 1.7% from over 3% just two weeks ago. Granted, there's still major data to come for June, including payrolls on Friday and CPI next week. Yet, if growth remains underwhelming and below the Fed's 1.8% long-term target, the threat is that earnings estimates could soon start looking too rosy.

The S&P 500 is seen posting EPS growth of about 9% in the second quarter, before accelerating into double-digits later in the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. Outside tech, earnings are finally supposed to overcome a profit downturn that has plagued much of corporate America for the past year. Softer growth would challenge those projections and once the narrative changes, risks such as pricey valuations will suddenly start mattering more.

Tatiana Darie writes for Bloomberg's Markets Live blog in New York. Follow her on X at @tatianadariee.

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