No punches have been thrown in the office…yet.
It might not be long though. This China bull is taking on the office’s most devout China bear, Greg Canavan, in a war of words that’s on the verge of getting out of hand.
One of our colleagues suggested we dress up in bull and bear outfits, and just have it out on the streets here in St Kilda. He helped support his idea with some photo-shopped pictures of yours truly and Greg:
What do you reckon?
Funny thing is, fighting in fluffy animal costumes in the streets of St Kilda actually wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. In fact, we’d probably make some money from hipster passers-by for our ‘street performance’.
But looking past the cute pictures, I want to emphasise that there’s a serious message here.
This starkly divided opinion in this usually united office is symptomatic of something – China’s economy is at a critical crossroads.
This is of paramount importance because which way China turns makes now either time to sell resource stocks and run for the hills as Greg instructs; or as I believe, it makes right now the best time in more than five years to buy resource stocks…
China bears are a bit overconfident right now, after having loads of mud to sling at us for the last two years.
You see, since the start of 2011, China’s growth decelerated steadily from 9.8% down to 7.4%.
‘Crashing Chinese growth’ has been the China bears battle cry!
Trouble is that neatly overlooks the fact that 7.4% is still a nitrous-oxide type growth rate!
To put 7.4% in context, it doubles an economy’s size inside of a decade. It’s fast. It also makes China’s growth by far the fastest growth rate in any large country globally. You have to start looking at tiddlers like Thailand (twenty times smaller than China) to find faster growth.
But it was the deceleration of growth that has the bears fired up. Would it continue and take China down in flames?
Short answer: no.
Bullish on China: Here’s Why
Over the last few months of 2012 (as far as I could see) it was obvious China was building for a solid bounce in economic growth. It was time to get bullish on industrial commodity stocks again. That’s why I started 2013 with a copper producer for Diggers and Drillers readers.
Sure enough, when China released its GDP data a week later, it showed a meaningful jump from 7.4% to 7.9% growth.
China’s Growth on the Way Back Up Again – Copper, Iron Ore and Coal to Boom
Of course, one stubby does not a slab make. We need a few more quarters to confirm this trend. But by then, the trading opportunity will be gone, so where do we look?
The ‘Purchasing Managers Indices (PMI)’ are one place.
Between the official and HSBC versions of this index, they survey 1250 ‘purchasing managers’ in the Chinese manufacturing sector. Businesses react to the market rapidly, and the purchasing manager has the best view and feel of the economic conditions.
It’s a ‘leading indicator’ of the economy. As such, it’s usually a pretty reliable guide of what the GDP will be for the quarter. And right now the PMI’s have been in positive territory for their last four monthly releases.
Of course, the only problem with trading on an official PMI, or GDP figure, is that they are government statistics. And as they say, there are lies, damn lies, and government statistics. Thing is there’s also an even worse category, called Chinese government statistics. So we watch them, but take them with a pinch of salt or three.
But if Greg pinned me down to give him one reason why I was so bullish on China at this moment, it actually wouldn’t be the statistics.
The reason would be that in November 2012 China wrapped up the main parts of its once-in-a-decade leadership transition.
In short, this will be one of the major drivers of the commodity markets in 2013.
In my eyes, it’s an investing opportunity that you can either grab now, or kick yourself for at Christmas for missing the trade of the year.
The reason I say this is that, like clockwork, this leadership transition has unleashed a wave of infrastructure spending. This chart shows how this has jumped EVERY time in the last thirty years. The years after 1982, 1992, and 2002 ALL saw a huge move without fail.
Buckle Up for Huge Chinese Spending
The reason being that Chinese politicians have their hands tied until the transition passes, so once it’s in the bag, they play catch up on projects. Besides, they are smack in the middle of an ambitious five-year plan of spending targets and they need to pick up the pace to get there.
So I expected a dam-burst of infrastructure spending to be unleashed in early 2013. And that would drive commodity demand as project development growth moves up the gears again.
We had a clear signal of this in China’s credit figures for January.
After treading water for most of last year waiting for the leadership transition, the flood gates of lending have opened.
The ‘total social financing aggregate’, which is China’s most comprehensive measure of lending, has jumped from around one trillion Yuan a month, to 2.5 trillion a month.
China’s Lending Explodes: Total Social Financing Aggregate Soars to 2.5 trillion
Now China bears will probably be tearing their hair out at this point. Their beef is that this is a clear warning sign of a credit bubble.
This is the core of where the bulls and bears differ. Where the bears see this lending as a reason to run and take cover, I see it as a precursor to immense Chinese growth.
To me, the crux of this chart is that this lending will translate straight into demand for the raw ingredients of an economy: iron ore, copper, coking coal, and the scores of more obscure raw ingredients like manganese, tin or rhodium. Not to mention indirectly to demand for gold – one of the things Greg and I can agree on.
Some Words of Wisdom
But what about the idea that I’m overlooking the fact that half of China’s GDP figure is from lending what could become bad loans that will cripple the banking sector?
There’s no denying China has taken investment spending to nosebleed levels, and that it will need to unleash the value for the bets to pay off. But I’m more optimistic than the China bears on this happening, and thus preventing non performing loans from rocking the system.
And I’m also more optimistic on China’s ability to stretch and rewrite the rules to enable payment, and to use the raw power of urbanisation and also rising land prices to pay off debts. But that’s a story for tomorrow’s Money Morning.
In the meantime, don’t forget to check out our free Google plus pages. We’ve already served up a few exchanges on the bull and bear China debate. Check it out.
And even if I’m wrong on all counts, you can be very comfortable that even if a credit bubble bursts – China will pull rabbit after rabbit out of the hat to delay it.
I’m not denying that the China bears could even get it right in the end. We’ll see. In the meantime, investors have any number of years in which to make money from the resource sector as this young resource rally builds steam again after its two-year sell off.
A hugely successful retired fund manager summed it up for me recently by saying, ‘Any punter on the street can always tell you twenty reasons to avoid the market – the trick is to spot the opportunities amongst the chaos, and then nimbly monetise them while the bears tie themselves up with thoughts of impending doom.’
Enough said.
Dr Alex Cowie
Editor, Diggers & Drillers
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