The narrative is set – today’s rally is predicated on “strong” Chinese trade data. So what happens when one chart explodes that narrative as totally fallacious for three simple reasons…
First, the data is clearly cooked… As Bloomberg’s Tom Orlik notes, China’s March imports from Hong Kong soared an implausible 116% YoY! As it is clearly disguising capital flows…
Trade mis-invoicing as a way to hide capital flows remains a factor. In the past, over-invoicing for exports was used as a way to hide capital inflows.