A large advertisement touting China’s “trade-in” policy hangs outside a housing construction project in Nanjing, China, on Nov. 29, 2024.
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China’s latest efforts to kickstart growth haven’t had a broad impact yet, data and company earnings show, indicating the world’s second-largest economy won’t be roaring back soon.
Growth in pockets from real estate to manufacturing has improved since Beijing began announcing stimulus measures in late September. Companies, however, have maintained a cautious tone when sharing outlooks in the last few weeks.
When asked on an earnings call Friday about the impact of stimulus, food delivery giant Meituan only said that in October, the average hotel order value in its newer travel booking business fell less than in the prior months, on an year-on-year basis.
“While it will take some time for the positive effect to fully materialize and to further [expand] to more consumption categories, we are confident that these policies will gradually provide more support for the real economy and incentivize consumer spending, bringing more growth opportunities for our business,” said Shaohui Chen, Meituan CFO and senior vice president, according to a recording of the earnings call.
Executives from e-commerce company Alibaba and social media operator Tencent shared similar comments last month in their earnings calls, saying stimulus would take time to translate into growth.
The ramp-up in stimulus measures is aimed at reaching this year’s official target of around 5%, and a similar pace next year — while preventing financial instability, Gabriel Wildau, managing director at Teneo, said in a note Monday. To him, the tone on the economy indicates that “technological self-sufficiency and national security remain the top priorities” for China.
“Looking ahead, our sources expect that stimulus in 2025 will trickle out incrementally and in a data-dependent fashion,” Wildau said. “‘Just enough’ rather than ‘whatever it takes’ will be the guiding principle.”
Preliminary economic indicators for November reinforce a picture of improving, but not explosive, growth.
The Caixin purchasing managers’ index for manufacturing showed further expansion in factory activity with a print of 51.5, its highest reading since June, according to LSEG data. The official PMI came in at 50.3, the highest since April. Retail sales and industrial data for November are due Dec. 16.
Caixin’s measure of manufacturing labor showed employment contracted for a third straight month in November. That indicates “the effect of economic stimulus is yet to be felt in the labor market and businesses’ confidence in expanding workforce needs to be strengthened,” Wang Zhe, senior economist at Caixin Insight Group, said in a report.
“While the economic downturn appears to be bottoming out, it needs further consolidation,” Wang said, noting the rising risk of “external uncertainties.”
The U.S. on Monday issued yet another round of restrictions aimed at crimping Chinese chipmakers. President-elect Donald Trump last week announced plans to impose 10% tariffs on all U.S. imports of Chinese goods once he takes office in January.
“Markets will only be salivating for more and more stimulus as the geopolitical temperature rises,” according to U.S.-based advisory firm China Beige Book’s survey of Chinese businesses released Monday.
The firm surveyed 1,502 companies from Nov. 14 to Nov. 26, and found that retail spending improved from a year ago, along with home sales, despite “widespread” weakness in consumption of services. The report also noted that the share of the respondents borrowing more rose to the highest since May 2022, indicating a pickup in demand.
“Beijing’s stimulus measures encouraged firms to come off the sidelines this month,” the report said. “But it’s unlikely to last without pledges of additional support.”
China’s Ministry of Finance has said more fiscal support could come next year. Investors are also watching for details from China’s annual economic planning meeting, typically held in mid-December.
Retail buyers came out in full force in the trading session following Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, continuing their dip-buying pattern throughout recent volatility. Individual investors bought a net $4.1 billion worth of stocks on Monday from the open through 12:30 p.m. ET, the largest level ever for the time of day and a more than 11 standard deviation move, according to data from JPMorgan’s trading desk. They closed the session with $5.4 billion net purchases. The retail cohort was also responsible for 36% of total trading volume Monday, marking another record, JPMorgan said. .SPX 1D mountain S & P 500 Their aggressive buying came after Moody’s Ratings cut the United States’ sovereign credit rating down one notch to Aa1 from Aaa, the highest possible, citing the growing burden of financing the federal government’s budget deficit and the rising cost of rolling over existing debt amid high interest rates. The S & P 500 slipped about 1% at its session low but ended up squeezing out a 0.09% gain for its sixth consecutive winning session thanks to the record retail buying. The “buy the dip” mentality has been well-anchored on Main Street this year. Retail traders net bought $40 billion in April during the tariff chaos, setting a new record for the largest monthly inflow. Their buying came even as Wall Street pros worried about a recession and a shift away from U.S. assets due to President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies. Still, the Moody’s debt downgrade pressured bond prices and sent yields higher Monday with the 30-year U.S. bond yield jumping above 5% and the 10-year yield topping 4.5%. “US Equities followed a similar path from last week where the daily lows were experienced in the pre-mkt, opening higher, and then seeing another leg higher after the UK/EU close,” JPMorgan said in a note Tuesday. “This may point to retail investors and corporate buybacks as the incremental buyers.”
U.S. births rose by 1% in 2024, with 3.6 million births recorded for the year, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 26: A woman pushes a stroller while walking along the La Jolla coastline at sunset on October, 2024 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BEIJING — One Chinese baby products company announced Tuesday it is officially entering the United States, the world’s largest consumer market — regardless of the trade war.
Shanghai-based Bc Babycare expects its supply chain diversification and the U.S. market potential to more than offset the impact of ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, according to Chi Yang, the company’s vice president of Europe and the Americas.
“Even [if] the political things are not steady … I’m very confident about our product for the moment,” he told CNBC, adding he anticipates “very fast” growth in the U.S. in coming years. That includes his bold predictions that Bc Babycare’s flagship baby carrier can become the best-seller on Amazon.com in half a year, and that U.S. sales can grow by 10-fold in a year.
The $159.99 carrier, eligible for a $40 discount, already has 4.7 stars on Amazon.com across more than 30 reviews. The device claims to reduce pressure on the parent’s body by up to 33%. A far cheaper version of the baby carrier is a top seller among travel products for pregnancy and childbirth on JD.com in China.
Bc Babycare already has the carrier stocked in its U.S. warehouses, and has a network of factories and raw materials suppliers in the Americas, Europe and Asia, Yang said. “The global supply chain is one of the things we keep on building in the past couple years.”
The Trump administration has sought to reduce U.S. reliance on China-made goods and to encourage the return of manufacturing jobs to the U.S. In a rapid escalation of tensions last month, the U.S. and China had added tariffs of more than 100% on each other’s goods. Last week, the two sides agreed to a 90-day pause for most of the new duties in order to discuss a trade deal.
Baby gear is particularly sensitive to tariffs since the majority of those sold in the U.S. are made in China, said U.S.-based Newell Brands, which owns stroller company Graco, on an April 30 earnings call. That’s according to a FactSet transcript.
The company said it raised baby gear prices by about 20% in the last few weeks, but had not incorporated the additional 125% tariffs announced in mid-April. Newell said on the call it had about three to four months of inventory in the U.S., and had paused additional orders from China.
The company did not respond to a request for comment about whether it had resumed orders from China and whether it planned more price increases.
U.S. office plans
Bc Babycare declined to share how much it planned to invest in the U.S. But Yang said the company plans to open an office in the country and hire about five to 10 locals.
The company initially plans to sell online, spend on marketing and eventually work with major retailers for offline store sales. Its partners for raw materials and research include three U.S. companies: Lyra, Dow and Eastman.
The Chinese company, which entered the baby products segment in 2014, in 2021 claimed a 700 million yuan ($97.09 million) funding round from investors including Sequoia Capital China.
Yang said the company scrutinizes the comments section on Chinese and U.S. e-commerce websites to improve its products. As a result, the U.S. version of the baby carrier is softer and larger than the Chinese version, he said.
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Bc Babycare’s U.S. market ambitions reflect how large U.S. and European multinationals not only face growing competition in China, but also in their home markets.
“After experiencing substantial growth due to the premiumization of consumption in the Chinese market, multinational brands are now entering a challenging second phase where they compete fiercely for market share,” Dave Xie, retail and consumer goods partner in Shanghai at consultancy Oliver Wyman, said in a statement last week.
Oliver Wyman said in a report last month that the Chinese market has become the incubator for premium product innovations that are being exported. The authors noted, for example, that Tineco floor scrubbers have become Amazon best-sellers.
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.
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.