The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that “China’s economic growth decelerated to its slowest pace in decades, weakened by trade tensions with the U.S. and businesses that held back from making big investments despite encouragement from Beijing.
The economy grew by 6.2% in the second quarter, down from 6.4% in the period before.” And yet most of the major commodity indexes were up this morning as the Reuters/Jefferies CRB rose nearly 0.4% in early trading thanks to higher crude oil, precious metal, and base metal prices. In New York, NYMEX crude oil futures were up over $60 per barrel, with Reuters reporting “Oil prices rose slightly on Monday as Chinese industrial output and retail data topped expectations but gains were capped by overall figures showing the country's slowest quarterly economic growth in decades.” COMEX gold futures traded as high as $1,421.60/to early this morning in New York. In London, LME 3-mo. copper and aluminum prices advanced to $6,000/mt and $1,830/mt, respectively, in early trading. In foreign exchange trading the euro edged up to $1.128 while the British pound slipped to $1.256.