China’s authorities bond market has opened 2025 with a transparent warning for policymakers: with out extra decided stimulus, traders count on deflationary pressures to turn into much more entrenched on the earth’s second-largest financial system.
China’s 10-year bond yield, a benchmark for financial progress and inflation expectations, fell to a record low of lower than 1.6 per cent throughout buying and selling final week and has since hovered near that degree.
Crucially, the entire yield curve has shifted downwards relatively than steepening, suggesting traders are alarmed concerning the long-term outlook and never simply anticipating short-term cuts to rates of interest.
“For the long-term [bonds], yields have been trending down and I believe that’s extra about longer-term progress expectations and inflation expectations turning into extra pessimistic. And I believe that pattern is more likely to proceed,” mentioned Hui Shan, chief China economist at Goldman Sachs.
Falling yields supply a stark distinction to unstable and rising yields in Europe and the US. For Beijing, the autumn represents an ignominious begin to the yr after policymakers in September launched a stimulus drive designed to revive the Chinese language financial system’s animal spirits.
However information launched on Thursday confirmed shopper costs remained near flat in December, eking out progress of simply 0.1 per cent on a yr earlier, whereas manufacturing facility costs declined 2.3 per cent, remaining in deflationary territory for greater than two years.
China’s central financial institution final yr unveiled insurance policies to stimulate funding by establishments in fairness markets and introduced for the primary time for the reason that 2008 monetary disaster that it was adopting a “moderately loose” monetary policy.
On Friday, it introduced a “scarcity of provide” meant it will pause its programme that has seen it buy a web Rmb1tn of presidency bonds on the open market.
An essential Communist get together assembly on the financial system in December, presided over by President Xi Jinping, emphasised consumption for the first time over different beforehand extra essential strategic priorities comparable to constructing high-tech industries.
The change of emphasis displays concern over family sentiment weakened by a three-year property disaster that has left the financial system extra depending on a producing and export increase for progress. Buyers fear this run of strong exports will slow abruptly after US president-elect Donald Trump takes workplace on January 20 with guarantees to levy as much as 60 per cent tariffs on Chinese language items.
Citi economists estimated in a analysis be aware {that a} 15 proportion level enhance in US tariffs would scale back China’s exports by 6 per cent, knocking a proportion level off GDP progress. Progress in China was estimated to be 5 per cent final yr.
Extra insidious than the slower progress, nevertheless, are the deflationary pressures in China’s financial system, mentioned analysts. The Citi economists famous that the ultimate quarter of final yr was anticipated to be the seventh in a row during which the GDP deflator, a broad measure of worth adjustments, was damaging.
“That is unprecedented for China, with the same episode solely in 1998-99,” they mentioned, stating that solely Japan, elements of Europe and a few commodity producers had skilled such an prolonged interval of deflation.
Chinese language regulators are conscious of the parallels with Japan on deflation, mentioned Robert Gilhooly, senior rising markets economist at Abrdn, however “they don’t appear to behave prefer it, and one factor that contributed to the Japan instance was going small with piecemeal easing”.
Goldman’s Shan mentioned the central financial institution had promised to ease financial coverage this yr, however simply as essential can be a big enhance in China’s fiscal deficit on the central and native authorities ranges.
How that deficit is spent may also be essential. Channelling it on to low-income households, for instance, may need a better “multiplier impact” than giving it to different sectors, comparable to to banks for recapitalisation, she mentioned.
Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, mentioned another excuse authorities bond yields have been at report lows was that the financial system was awash with liquidity. Excessive family financial savings and low demand for company and particular person loans have left banks flush with money that’s discovering its manner into bond markets.
“It’s slightly little bit of a liquidity lure within the sense that there’s cash, it’s obtainable, it may be borrowed cheaply, however there’s simply no demand for that,” mentioned Neumann. “Financial easing on the margin is turning into much less and fewer of an efficient driver of financial progress.”
With no robust fiscal spending package deal, the deflationary cycle may proceed, with rates of interest dropping, wages and funding falling and customers deferring purchases whereas they look ahead to costs to fall additional.
“Some traders have misplaced slightly little bit of persistence right here previously week,” he mentioned, referring to the push into bonds. “It’s nonetheless probably we’re going to get extra stimulus coming by means of. However after all of the suits and begins of the previous couple of years, traders actually wish to see concrete numbers.”
Some economists warned that the slide in Chinese language bond yields might have additional to fall. Analysts at Normal Chartered mentioned the 10-year yield might fall one other 0.2 proportion factors to 1.4 per cent by the top of 2025, particularly if the market has to soak up greater web central authorities bond issuance for stimulus functions.
