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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (35833)	6/16/2008 8:50:52 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217530

just in in-tray Dr Jim Walker makes a good point. Inflation is really beginning to show in the trade stats. Here is a key insight from Dr. Jim below: "Looking around at Asian export data would give the impression that there is no slowdown in global economic activity at all. Korean export growth in May was up 27% YoY in US dollar terms and 41% YoY in won terms. Chinese export growth was up 28% YoY in dollar terms (although only 16% when converted into renminbi) while Taiwanese exports were up 21% YoY. But all is not as it seems. Trade reporting in Asia, which used to be straightforward in the days of stable currencies and zero export price inflation, is no longer easy to interpret. Korea provides the best example of this. Just last week the local currency export and import price indices for May were released. The export price index was up 24% YoY while the import price index was up 45% YoY. Apart from the Asian Crisis distortion (when the won blew up) these kind of export and import price increases have not been seen since the early 1980s(the last oil shock). When we use the export price deflator to restate the growth rate in Korean exports in won terms we find that the 41% YoY growth in May becomes 14% growth in 'real' terms (see chart). While not indicating dire global demand conditions the fact is that export headwinds are growing - it is just difficult to see them in the nominal, price and exchange rate-distorted data. One thing is for sure though; it is not hard to see where the inflation is ending up. As reported last week, the US' import price index rose 17.8% YoY in May."