see the game is rigged. using operator's cash flow to renovate and sell it back to them, double dipped perhaps even triple dipped. food price will go up soon. Burger King owner Restaurant Brands buys chain’s largest U.S. franchisee Restaurant Brands plans to remodel 600 of Carrols’ Burger King locations rapidly over the next five years and then sell them back to franchisees, Tom Curtis, president of Burger King U.S. and Canada, said. The company will invest about $500 million, funded by Carrols’ operating cash flow, to pay for the renovations.
business-standard.com Chinese exports decline 4.6% after seven years amid economic crisis Jan. 12, 2024 Amid the economic crisis, Chinese exports saw a downfall for the first time since 2016 after global demand for Chinese-made goods slowed in 2023, CNN reported citing the Customs data released on Friday. According to CNN, the Chinese economy is struggling to stem deflationary pressures and consumer price inflation in 2023 was the weakest it has been in 14 years. Chinese exports were measured at USD 3.38 trillion in 2023, down by 4.6 per cent compared to the year before. In 2022, Chinese exports increased by 7 per cent from the year earlier. The last time China registered a decline in overseas shipments was in 2016 when exports fell 7.7 per cent. Imports also fell last year, by 5.5 per cent to USD 2.56 trillion, CNN reported, adding that it left the world's second-largest economy with a trade surplus of USD 823 billion. "The global economic recovery has been weak in the past year," Lyu Daliang, a spokesperson for the General Administration of Customs, told a Friday press conference in Beijing, adding, "Sluggish external demand has hit China's exports." He added that he expects China to continue facing 'difficulties' on export markets as global demand is likely to remain weak and "protectionism and unilateralism" hinder growth. The consumer price index for December improved slightly from November, but was down 0.3 per cent on the same month in 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. For 2023 as a whole, prices were up by just 0.2 per cent over 2022, the weakest reading since 2009, when CPI fell by 0.7 per cent as a global recession hit. China is suffering a double-whammy of weak demand at home and abroad. December was the third month in a row that the consumer inflation gauge has fallen year-on-year, marking the longest run of declines since 2009. Food prices, especially the prices of pork, were a major drag. "Ongoing low core CPI inflation likely reflects dampened domestic demand due to the ongoing property downturn and stressed labour market," Goldman Sachs analysts said on Friday. According to CNN, the factory-gate prices were also subdued. The Producer Price Index dropped 2.7 per cent in December from the same period in 2022, the 15th consecutive month of declines. For 2023, the PPI fell 0.3 per cent. Looking ahead, analysts from Capital Economics expect core inflation to rise slightly, helped by a cyclical recovery in the Chinese economy. But deflationary pressures won't go away. "Weak global growth and continued over-investment in China means that deflation risks will continue to hang over its economy for some time," said analysts from Capital Economics on Friday. At USD 240 billion, trade with Russia hit a new record high in 2023, up 26 per cent from the previous year. Overall, it made up 4 per cent of China's total trade. The United States remained China's largest single-country trading partner in 2023, accounting for 11.2 per cent of total trade. However, that represented a drop in 2022 -- the first fall since 2019, when Washington and Beijing were in the middle of a prolonged trade war. ASEAN, the 10-member bloc in Southeast Asia, and the European Union accounted for 15.4 per cent and 13.2 per cent of total trade with China, the Chinese customs figures showed. The country also registered a 69 per cent surge in the total value of automobile exports last year, the highest among all categories, CNN reported. By volume, China shipped 5.22 million vehicles in 2023, up 57 per cent from 2022. That's in part thanks to surging growth in electric vehicles, said Lyu. "One out of every three cars exported by China is an electric passenger vehicle," he said at the press conference. "Looking to the future, we believe that China's auto industry still has a strong comprehensive competitive advantage and can continue to provide more and better innovative products to meet the needs of global consumers," he added. Earlier this week, a major Chinese car industry group said the country is "certain" to have surpassed Japan to become the world's largest car exporter last year, driven by strong demand in Russia and growing global appetite for EVs. The rankings will be confirmed once Japan's official annual figures are released, which are expected in the next few weeks.
japantoday.com China 2023 economic growth tipped to be weakest in decades Jan. 16, 2024 China's economy likely grew at its weakest annual rate for more than three decades in 2023, data is expected to show Wednesday, as it was battered by a crippling property crisis, sluggish consumption and global uncertainties. A group of ten experts interviewed by AFP forecast China's gross domestic product (GDP) to have expanded 5.2 percent, which would represent the lowest rate since 1990, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic. The reading would be an improvement on the three percent seen in 2022, though that year saw business activity hammered by tight health curbs designed to contain the virus. After lifting the measures, Beijing set itself a growth target of "around five percent" for 2023. The return of normal life initially sparked a recovery at the start of last year but the long-awaited rebound soon ran out of steam as a lack of confidence among households and businesses battered consumption. An intractable real estate crisis, record youth unemployment and a global slowdown are also gumming the gears of the Chinese growth engine. "The main challenge for China's economic recovery still stems from the property sector," said Jing Liu, chief economist for Greater China at HSBC. The property sector has long accounted for around a quarter of China's economy. It experienced dazzling growth for two decades, but financial woes at major firms such as Evergrande and Country Garden are now fuelling buyer mistrust, against a backdrop of unfinished housing developments and falling prices. Purchasing property has long been seen by many Chinese as a safe haven for parking savings, but the price drop has hit their wallets hard. "Real estate investment, dwelling prices and new dwelling sales are set to fall throughout 2024 before returning as a modest driver of growth in 2025," said Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody's ratings agency. That crisis, alongside "sluggish labour market conditions", are dampening consumer confidence, said Helen Qiao, head of Asia Economic Research at Bank of America. A record of more than one in five people aged 16 to 24 in China were unemployed in May, according to officials, the monthly publication of which has since been suspended. The uneven recovery has largely benefitted services, as customers have returned to restaurants, transport and tourist sites. But the level of spending is often lower than 2019, before the pandemic took hold. A rare bright spark is the state-subsidised auto sector, where a wave of electrification has buttressed domestic manufacturers such as BYD, which dethroned Elon Musk's Tesla as the world's best-selling EV maker in the fourth quarter. However, other areas are struggling, notably industry, which has been weakened by ailing demand at home and abroad. Chinese exports -- historically a key growth lever -- fell last year for the first time since 2016, according to figures published by the country's customs agency on Friday. The decline is partly explained by geopolitical tensions with the United States and efforts by some Western nations to reduce dependence on Beijing or diversify their supply chains. "More Western companies (are) reducing or maintaining current levels of investments" in China but diversifying elsewhere, said Teeuwe Mevissen, an analyst at Rabobank. "China saw significant capital outflows" as a result, but also due to increasing its own investments abroad, he told AFP. All of these challenges "will continue to play an important role in 2024", Mevissen warned. This year, China's growth is expected to slow to 4.5 percent, according to World Bank forecasts. The average prediction by AFP's pool of experts was 4.7 percent. Beijing is expected to announce its new growth target in March.
It's important to keep things in proper perspective, which headlines sometimes hide. "Slowing" to 4.5% growth should not be thought of as slow growth but simply "less amazing" for a country of China's size and population.
But you can see that they've already suspended publishing unemployment number (see below). It's these kind of actions that invite suspicion. So can we really trust the numbers they report?
Nothing but bullish news. There markets are going to do a complete 180 and skyrocket. They are going to join the other bull markets around the world and catapult 50 to 100% in the next 2 to 3 yrs while the dow skyrockets to 70k by end of 2024-2025. There Is absolutely nothing that is going to stop this bull run. China is only going to add even more gains to the global markets once everyone sees their markets gaining. Ita going to be one massive AI market bull run where every world market participates amd rallies beyond anyone's wild imagination!!!
Yup, that's how the market operates. Those who thought the Nasdaq was insanely expensive in the late 90s got their heads chopped off. Those who bet against the housing market before the 2008 crash got their heads handed back to them on a silver platter. And those who thought Corona would bring the stock market to its knee in the early 2020 never really had any heads in the first place. It's all about TIMING, not your opinion. While news and social media is full of lies and hype, prices you see on the chart is a direct reflection of what's happening in the world. Once the bad news hits the street, it will immediately get priced in. That's when you react. Not when you think it will happen.
There should be many many happy faces. China A50 day range could be as high as 2.5%, Hangseng 4.7%...