Investors are waking up to big trouble in big China. Stock futures and oil prices are falling after angry anti-COVID zero protests swept the country. “This is a sudden powerful new distraction for markets when this week was supposed to be about incoming U.S. data,” sum up strategists at Saxo Bank. They say watch companies exposed to China, “given forward earnings are likely to be downgraded following further China lockdowns and protests.”
Before China grabbed the spotlight, holiday weekend sales, jobs and inflation data that due this week, as well as remarks by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell were the big focus. Other questions are now swirling. Will China-related falls in oil prices lend to the peak inflation theory? And what about China’s post-COVID economic rebirth?
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