China PMI Hits 77-Month Low

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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According to the August Early Caixin Manufacturing PMI for China, the measure hit a 77-month low.

The research firm reported the number was 47.1 points.

The final PMI for the sector in July was 47.8, below the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction.

Figures for components of the index showed that new orders and employment contracted more sharply from the previous month than any other categories. Output also decreased at a faster rate than in July.

Also:

The weakness was partly caused by external factors, including weaker demand from Europe, which was struggling to cope with the Greek debt crisis, and a cheaper currency in some of China’s major trading partners including Japan, according to a report co-authored by He and Zhu He, a researcher at Caixin Insight Group

The definition of a recession in China may be very different than that of the U.S. where two negative quarters are needed for the recession to be official

Because the Chinese economy has grow close to 8% over the last several years, the PMI figure indicates that grow may have dropped below 7%, which could indicate a sharp drop in employment and critical factory activity. In other word’s China may be in a recession.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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