🔍 The focus this week: China’s crucial meeting

China’s government has set an official economic growth target of “around 5%” for 2024, echoing last year’s aim. But, as experts quickly pointed out, the goal will be harder to hit this time around. Back in 2023, growth – which came in at 5.2% – was helped by a low “base effect”, or starting point, because of stifling pandemic restrictions the year before.

So you can understand investors’ huge surprise when China unveiled year-over-year growth of 5.3% for the first three months of this year, trouncing forecasts of 4.6%. A quick peek underneath the hood revealed a very unbalanced economy though, with the supply side of things showing a lot of muscle but demand looking feeble. Put differently, first-quarter growth was driven mainly by strong manufacturing output, exports, and business spending on things like machinery and equipment, all of which helped offset weak consumer spending. Economists believe the trend has continued: they expect the next batch of data, due on Monday, to show second-quarter growth of 5.1%.

Now, while that impressive showing could put the government’s 2024 growth target within easy reach, there could be some roadblocks ahead. See, Chinese authorities have encouraged more output from the manufacturing sector to help make up for weak domestic spending, and that’s led to a nice bounce in exports. But it’s also stirred some hard feelings from the country’s trading partners, who are accusing it of overproduction and dumping, and are slapping hefty tariffs on certain Chinese goods in response.

That’s why investors will also be closely watching the Chinese government’s “Third Plenum”, which begins on Monday. This crucial meeting, held once every five years, is known for churning out major economic policies that shift the country's path. Authorities could not only use the session to put together a long-term response to the tariffs, but also to implement reforms to address some of the country’s biggest troubles. That list includes a property slump, lethargic consumer activity, lofty local debt levels, an aging and shrinking population, and restricted access to key technology components from China’s trading partners.

📅 On the calendar

• Monday: China economic growth (Q2), China industrial production and retail sales (June), Chinese government’s “Third Plenum” begins, eurozone industrial production (May). Earnings: BlackRock, Goldman Sachs.
• Tuesday: Eurozone trade balance (May), US retail sales (June). Earnings: Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, UnitedHealth.
• Wednesday: UK inflation (June), US industrial production (June). Earnings: Johnson & Johnson.
• Thursday: Japan trade balance (June), UK labor market report (May), European Central Bank interest rate announcement. Earnings: Netflix, TSMC, Blackstone, Abbott Laboratories, Intuitive Surgical.
• Friday: Japan inflation (June), UK retail sales (June). Earnings: American Express, Schlumberger.

👀 What you might’ve missed last week

Global

• Global average temperatures breached a key climate threshold for a full year.
• Default rates on leveraged loans have more than tripled.

US

• US inflation fell faster than forecast.

Europe

• The UK economy expanded by more than expected.

🤔 Why it matters

Over the past year, the global average temperature was 1.64°C above pre-industrial levels, the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced last week. However, that doesn’t mean the Paris Accord – where nations agreed to limit the rise in global temperatures to “well below” 2°C and “ideally” to 1.5°C – is out the window. That’s because the agreement’s based on a longer-term measurement of more than a decade. But the breach is increasing calls for quicker and more forceful action to tackle rising temperatures.

Global default rates on leveraged loans – the ones extended to risky companies that already carry considerable amounts of debt – have more than tripled, rising from roughly 2% in early 2022 to around 7% today, the Bank of England reported last week. That’s higher than the long-term average, but below the peak of 12% hit during the global financial crisis. Still, that’s enough to raise eyebrows as it’s led to increasing credit losses for banks – which could push them to reduce their overall lending activity.

The annual pace of US inflation cooled its heels to 3% in June from 3.3% the month before. That was slightly below what economists were expecting and marked the slowest pace of price gains since March 2021. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy items to give a better idea of underlying price pressures, dipped slightly too, defying forecasts for an unchanged reading. The data could prompt the Federal Reserve to begin reducing interest rates soon. Traders think so anyway: they’ve upped their bets that the first cut will happen in September.

The UK economy grew by 0.4% in May from the month before – double the pace expected. Helping matters was good weather, which revived activity in the services and construction sectors after April’s heavy rain caused the economy to flatline. Taking a longer view, economic output rose by 0.9% in the three months ending in May compared to the previous three – its quickest pace in more than two years and better than the Bank of England had anticipated.