One news story, two interpretations.
First, the New York Times headline read “World Bank Raises Forecast for China’s Economy”. But Bloomberg saw it this way: “China Must Avert Loan-Fueled Bubbles, World Bank Says”, the story adding that domestic lending in China had blown out this year to $US1.27 trillion.
For reasons explained below, we think the latter is nearer the market.
Then there was this item in overnight from ITRI in London. Japan's tin imports fell by 38% year-on-year to 15,181 tonnes in January-September.
ITRI said the drop was mainly due to very poor consumption in the first four to five months of the year, although imports in September were also very low, at 1462 tonnes, down 48 per cent on the same month of last year. It did add that some of this could be due to interrupted supply out of Indonesia, but even so the figures are a worry.
It is often overlooked that Japan is a bigger export market for us than is China, and both are critical to our mining exports. There seems to be this notion about that Australia is a dream economy, able to withstand the knocks that most other parts of the world are taking - anyone taken a look at our foreign debt position lately? And that China and its never-ending growth story is the reason why we can all take a she’ll be right attitude.
Investors continue to pump money into the resources sector, presumably because they believe the China story.
Here’s a reality check for both miners and investors. China and Japan could go very pear-shaped.
I was recently sent some comments made by a senior commodities person based in Singapore about concerns regarding the minerals inventory build-up in China, and how these could negatively affect commodity prices if demand does pick up as expected. Of course, much of that demand would have to come from the (already tapped-out) US consumers.
His other comments dealt with the latest estimate of losses on US assets - $US2.7 trillion - and that US banks have, according to the IMF, disclosed only about half the amount of losses they will ultimately face. He concludes thus: “The IMF (is) signalling that almost every measure of risk is at a worse level now than it was in (their) October 2008 report”
Listen to Andy Xie, writing in China Business International. Xie, by the way, was formerly at Morgan Stanley and was a co-commentator there with Stephen Roach. So he has gravitas.
Writing out of Hong Kong, he believes the China stock market and land price bubbles will burst before the end of the year. “The present economic ‘recovery’ began in February as inventories were restocked,” he writes. “When the market sees the second dip looming, panic will be more intense and thorough”
His bottom line: “We are not in the midst of a new boom, we are at the last stage of the Greenspan bubble, and it ends with stagflation”.
Clif Droke, a highly regarded financial newsletter publisher in the US, argues that Chinese entrepreneurs and investors have been stockpiling copper and other physical metals in a bold speculation on their country’s economic future.
Just take one figure: in the whole of 2008, China imported 1.46 million tonnes of copper; in the seven months of 2009, the import total was 2.4 million tonnes.
Droke thinks the worry is that the Chinese stock markets are not corroborating the bullish sentiment being expressed about the Chinese economy.
“It may be time to begin looking askance at the economic data (questionable as it is) and taking a hard look at where China’s economy is heading in 2010”, he concludes.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, on London's Daily Telegraph and another widely quoted commentator, has just published an article stating that “Japan is drifting helplessly towards a dramatic financial crisis”.
He quotes a former IMF chief economist, Simon Johnson, raising the spectre that Japan could end up defaulting on some of its debt. Japan Post Bank alone hold $US1.7 trillion of state debt, and the country’s gross public debt is nearing 218% of GDP.
We mustn’t be blase. However, the general economic commentary here, and the return of rampant speculation in resources stocks, suggests that this is exactly the state of mind in Australia.
There are now storm warning flags flying over our two largest export markets.
And the only Asian news that made sense last week was India buying 200 tonnes of IMF gold. That itself was stark commentary on how New Delhi sees the international global financial system.
Outcrop is a weekly column on ILN’s sister publication MiningNews.net.
