Three things surfaced from today's economic data:
1. The strength of US orders for durable goods and capital goods. This extends the run of surprisingly strong global capital goods sector numbers seen since mid-July. Quite surprisingly, it seems that the capital goods sector is the first out of the blocks as far as post-Covid recovery is concerned.
2. Hong Kong's July trade data was overall rather disappointing, but the relative strength of exports to China vs the relative weakness of imports from China suggests quite simply that China's domestic demand recovery is running ahead of recoveries in the rest of the world. HK's trade numbers can be seen as warehouse movements indicating the state of China relative to the rest of the world.
3. S Korea posted improved survey results for manufacturers. But don't be fooled - even though they beat expectations, they're still not better than the worst moments of the pre-Covid world.
