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China state planner lays out further actions to boost economy but no new plans for major stimulus

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The Chinese national flag flies outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing on July 26, 2023. 

Greg Baker | Afp | Getty Images

Zheng Shanjie, chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, on Tuesday pledged a raft of actions to bolster the country’s economy during a highly-anticipated press conference.

But he stopped short of announcing any new major stimulus plans, underwhelming investors and weakening the rally in the mainland Chinese markets.

China will speed up special purpose bond issuance to local governments to support regional economic growth, the senior NDRC official said.

Zheng said ultra-long special sovereign bonds, totaling 1 trillion yuan, have been fully deployed to fund local projects, and he vowed that China will continue to issue ultra-long special treasury bonds next year.

The central government will release a 100 billion yuan investment plan for next year by the end of this month, ahead of schedule, a senior official added.

Zheng also promised that more measures are coming that aims to support the property market and boost domestic spending.

The NDRC head was speaking at a press briefing with four other key officials of the country’s economic planning agency. The briefing came as markets in mainland China returned from Golden Week, a weeklong holiday that started Sept. 30.

Chinese stocks reopened sharply higher on Tuesday morning, extending the rally before the holiday. Major indexes in mainland China — the Shanghai Composite Index, CSI 300 blue-chip index and SZSE Component Index — surged over 10% in early hour trade.

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Shanghai Composite Index

Last month, China’s top leaders had signaled a sense of urgency in confronting a long and painful economic downturn that has thrown into doubt the country’s ability to hit an annual growth target of “around 5%.”

Before the holiday, Chinese authorities had called for strengthening fiscal and monetary policy support at a monthly meeting of top Communist Party officials, and unveiled a flurry of stimulus measures aimed to put an end to the sliding property prices.

The stimulus blitz came as growth in the world’s second largest economy had slowed after a disappointing recovery from Covid-19 lockdowns, weighed down by lackluster domestic demand and a protracted property downturn.

In the first half of the year, China’s economy grew by 5.0% from a year earlier, meeting the central government’s target, while in the April-June quarter, its GDP growth missed expectations and grew by 4.7%, marking its slowest growth since the first quarter in 2023.

China’s latest consumer price index rose by 0.6% year on year in August, missing expectations of 0.7%, while the core-CPI, which strips out food and energy prices, climbed by 0.3%, a slower rise for a second-straight month.

Among a barrage of disappointing economic data, China’s factory activity also contracted for the fifth consecutive month in September, with the official PMI coming in at 49.8 in September. A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion in activity, while a reading below that level points to contraction.

The Caixin PMI was 49.3 in the same period, the sharpest contraction in 14 months, driven by declining demand and a weakening labor market.

In March, Zheng said at a high-level press conference that China will “continue to strengthen macroeconomic policies.” It would involve coordination of fiscal, monetary, employment, industrial and regional policies, he said, as China continues to step up macro economic policy adjustment.

The NDRC chief also acknowledged that “there are still many difficulties and problems” in the process of achieving the country’s expected growth targets, according to CNBC’s translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.

This is breaking news. Please check back here for updates.

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Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says markets are too complacent

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Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of de-banking on Feb. 13, 2025.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that markets and central bankers underappreciate the risks created by record U.S. deficits, tariffs and international tensions.

Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.

“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think” they can, he said.

“My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs” yet, Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%; that’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”

Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump‘s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.

Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty.

In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.

“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the “price to earnings” ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts.

The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.

Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said that corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.

Investment banking revenue is headed for a “mid-teens” percentage decline in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period, while trading revenue was trending higher by a “mid-to-high” single digit percentage, said Troy Rohrbaugh, a co-head of the firm’s commercial and investment bank.

On the ever-present question of Dimon’s timeline to hand over the CEO reins to one of his deputies, Dimon said that nothing changed from his guidance last year, when he said he would likely remain for less than five more years.

“If I’m here for four more years, and maybe two more” as executive chairman, Dimon said, “that’s a long time.”

Of all the executive presentations given Monday, consumer banking chief Marianne Lake had the longest speaking time at a full hour. She is considered a top successor candidate, especially after Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak said she would not be seeking the top job.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: UNH, TSLA, BABA

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Klarna doubles losses in first quarter as IPO remains on hold

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Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.

The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.

Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.

It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.

Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.

Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.

Watch CNBC's full interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski

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