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China May PMI Signals Trouble

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Data about China’s economy continues to swing back and forth, with the largest concern being that its GDP growth rate could drop below 7% for the first time in years. This could be a signal that demand for goods from its huge export machine has sputtered.

The most recent data about China was bad.

According to MarketWatch:

China watchers weighed conflicting data on the nation’s manufacturing sector, with HSBC reporting Monday that the sector contracted in May, while government numbers released earlier pointed to a pick-up in activity.

The final version of the HSBC China manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for May fell to 49.2, down from a preliminary reading of 49.6, and more than a point off from April’s 50.4. A result below 50 signals contraction. The data is compiled by Markit.

HSBC said that while the result marked the first contraction in seven months, “albeit at only a marginal pace,” manufacturing output actually registered its seventh straight gain, though that too was small in size.

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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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