The trend rise in upstream services PPI isn't faltering. With a decent MoM jump, the YoY ticked back up in November to the all-time high of 3.1%. This steady rise remains the clearest indicator of Japan's structural exist from deflation, and suggests also that the BOJ's cyclical story remains alive.

November consumer sentiment remained soft, staying barely above the survey's long-term average. That doesn't suggest consumer spending, which has been weak, is about to revive. At the same time, price expectations, firm all year, ticked up last month, warning that disinflation has run out of steam.

Latest data from the customs administration show no let-up in the export volume surge that began earlier this year. China's exports are growing as quickly they were during the pandemic. That's remarkable, given that in 2021-22 world trade was growing strongly, now it is hardly increasing at all.

It looks like labour market tightness has peaked, but the change isn't big enough yet to impact monetary policy. After ticking up in September, the unemployment rate was stable at 3.4% in October. That keeps it at a level not seen since the early 2000s.

YoY growth in Korean exports in the first 20 days of November didn't do much to reverse the October slump, a decline that feels more significant given the similar drop in the PMI in the last couple of months. Semi exports are still rising, but not much else is.

October's export orders continued to creep up, but nothing more than that, and the DI has turned down, warning of downside risk from here. Admittedly, export orders have been tending to lag actual exports, but with the PMI weakening too, we've probably seen the best of the export cycle.

Today's October FDI data once again illustrate the big reorientation of Taiwan's investment and trade flows away from China and towards the US. For FDI that's been encouraged by Biden subsidies, but Trump doesn't like those, nor the big trade surplus that Taiwan now runs with the US.

The headlines don't show much change in the labour market in October, with the unemployment rate still comfortably below 3%. But while employment overall was stable, that was because of government jobs. Employment in the private sector fell again and is now the lowest since July 2023.

The post-2020 rise in wage growth is holding in manufacturing. In services, it is less obvious, but for the economy overall, the trend in wage growth is still comfortably above 2% YoY, whereas in the 15 years from 2003 it was closer to 1%. This rise, in turn, should raise the floor for inflation.

Including CGBs, the credit impulse is weak, but not terrible, and there's been a tick-up in bank lending and mortgages since August. However, there's nothing to suggest any real momentum in the credit cycle. At the same time, the deflationary move into time deposits continues.

Export growth in the first ten days of November fell to zero. And while the small number of days make this data set volatile, it comes after weakness in broader data for October, both full-month trade, and the PMI. The weakness in exports is a big deal for the BOK when domestic demand is also soft.

There might be some signs of better sentiment feeding into prices, but they aren't strong. Core sequential CPI inflation did get back to zero in October, but the 3mma remains negative. Despite the jump in PMI input prices last month, PPI also continues to fall.