In the past 10 days, China has released most economic data for July. Here, weuse 15 charts to summarize the key message and update our economic outlook.    The recent rebound proved short-lived: Almost every data point for July camein lower than expected (see the table on the left). It suggests that the reboundsince this June was a short-lived one rather than a reversal of the broad downtrend.    For the remainder of this year, we expect growth to decelerate albeit at agradual pace. GDP growth could slow to 6.7% yoy in 3Q17 and 6.6% in 4Q17,from 6.9% in 2Q17. But the downside risk for 2018 is much bigger and the majorheadwind could come from the property sector. Our current forecast for 2018 is6.0% (vs. consensus at 6.3%).    Two major growth drivers losing steam: China’s economy in 2017 has beendriven largely by property and exports. Single-month data is noisy, so we don’twant to read too much into the sharp slowdown of property sales and investmentin July. But the broad downtrend is clear. The stronger-than-expected demandfrom lower-tier cities and the support from the government, such as the PSLlending, could prolong the deceleration, but is unlikely to change the big trend.    For exports, trade data suggests that the global recovery is softening, as themanufacturing PMIs in the US, EU, China and Japan dropped together in July.    The softened external demand in turn caused a slump in China’s manufacturingFAI growth in July. The weaker domestic demand then dampened import growth.    Policy implications - Stay put: Policy makers are not very likely to change theirpolicy stance at this moment. Growth is slowing, but still well above the target forthis year. For monetary policy, eased capital outflows this year reduce the needfor RRR cuts and we expect no change in rate and RRR in the remainder of thisyear. Liquidity flows to the real economy remained robust in July, even if the M2growth dropped to a historical low.    Equity market implications – Remain supportive: For the equity market, wemaintain the view that the current macro backdrop is supportive (State of China’seconomy - Two macro pillars of the market remain supportive, Aug 1). GDPgrowth is weaker but still above the trend. Earnings growth is trending down butstill robust. Price change is weak enough for policy to stay accommodative, butnot too weak to become a deflation. As the Party Congress approaches, policymakers have to think twice before launching another regulation storm. At theearly stage of a cyclical slowdown, late-cycle variables such as wage growth andbank asset quality are still improving. Looking ahead, a cooling of China’sproperty market and a tightening of the Fed policy are the two major risks for thestock market. And these two could happen together.    Commodity market implications - Another turning point for expectations:For the commodity market, the expectation is much more volatile than thefundamentals this year. For instance, the iron ore price, one barometer ofChina’s economy, jumped 20% in Jan and Feb, then slumped 40% in the nextthree months. It has surged 40% again since June, supported by better-thanexpecteddata and the supply controls. However, the latest economic datasuggests that the improvement in data earlier is only a blip. Moreover, theabnormal behaviour in both steel prices and production (Fig 3 inside) has alsoraised the concerns on the dark side of supply controls, including forming aspeculative bubble. Put together, these could lead to another turning point ofexpectations in the commodity market.

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