With a bounce in reported retail sales, it looks like economic growth in October got back to the government's 5% growth target. Overall, though, the tone of the data was rather mixed, with real estate activity in particular still extremely weak.

The bond swap does represent substantive policy. But there still isn't support for consumption, so this does look like an effort to put a floor under growth, rather than produce a new upcycle. And while that will probably be successful, stability will be endangered by a new round of Trump tariffs.

A chart pack arguing that consumption hasn't been as weak as is often imagined, but that downside risks are growing as wage and property income falls. Policy solutions need to overcome the weakness of non-wage incomes, the strength of savings, and the pro-investment official mindset.

Likely driven by the sentiment-driven rise in prices, the manufacturing PMI bounced back above 50 in October. But there was barely any change in either the services or construction, PMIs, and both will need to improve to think that the economy really is turning around.

The government yesterday published its monthly series for the profits of the industrial sector. I am always a bit sceptical of the quality of these data. But if you want a trigger for the recent macro policy push, then the sharp fall in profits in September fits the bill.

The slump in confidence and retail sales don't indicate a major cyclical weakening of consumption. That's partly because households have been running down excess savings from covid. But with savings now normalising, consumption is becoming more vulnerable to the deterioration in the labour market.

Looking at today's data, the driver of all the recent policy activism is to get growth back to the 5% target. That doesn't suggest a big rebound in the nominal growth that equity investors need. The upside risk is this policy push is happening when there are tentative signs of property stabilising.

Cyclically, credit is very weak, especially private sector borrowing. But credit is still rising relative to GDP. That's partly because of government borrowing. But it is also because of weak nominal GDP growth, and that is unlikely to change until the sharp fall in M1 relative to M2 reverses.

Exports dropped quite sharply in September. China is still making share gains in autos especially, but this is another sign that the best of the recovery in the regional export cycle is probably now done. That matters for China when exports have been the strongest sector of the economy.