【英语中国】中国指标修正真乃股市大跌原凶？

A once-obscure indicator from the Conference Board has managed to capture global headlines less than two months after it was published for the first time.

Unfortunately for the New York-based organization, the attention has centered on the downward revision in its China leading economic index for April, after the group admitted to a mistake in its previous calculations.

Much market commentary blamed the change for Tuesday's 4.3% fall in China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index--which was followed by declines in other global markets, including the Dow's 2.6% drop. The blogger known as Tyler Durden even headlined his take on the news 'Massive Downward Revision of China Leading Economic Index Refutes China 'Recovery' Myth.' (The revision doesn't seem to have actually changed his pessimistic take on the Chinese economy.)

But as always with markets, multiple explanations are possible: Rachel Ziemba of Roubini Global Economics said the fall in Shanghai was more likely due to reduced liquidity.

The Conference Board's leading indicator for China--like the ones it calculates for other countries--is based on publicly available data published by the Chinese government, but the correction didn't reflect any change in the underlying data.

'A human error occurred when reformatting the official data for April. There's a lot of transformations that need to happen to the Chinese data to make them directly comparable to the indicators we use in other LEIs,' explained Bill Adams, the Conference Board's resident economist in Beijing.

The idea that global markets were being driven by such statistical flukes seemed particularly frustrating to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch economist Ting Lu. On Wednesday he unleashed a vicious--by the standards of economists, anyway--critique of the methods used to generate the indicator. In addition to the error the Conference Board admitted and corrected, Lu alleged other several statistical mistakes, saying the group's analysts 'might misunderstand' or 'may fail' to do certain procedures. He didn't provide evidence that any specific error had actually been made, but urged investors to discount the indicator.

Asked to respond to Lu's report, Bill Adams of the Conference Board said: 'The China LEI is made according to a transparent and internationally comparable methodology, and we welcome comments from the analytical community on our methodology.'

The most mysterious part about the brouhaha over the correction by the Conference Board is that it does not actually represent a major change in the outlook for China. The revision pushed the six-month annualized rate of change in the index down to 6.8% in April from the original 9.9%. The new rate is the same as January's--which shows that the corrected number is in line with the recent trend. The LEI has been signaling a slowdown since December.

Notably, the erroneous high reading had no discernible effect on global markets when it was announced, on June 15--adding to the mystery of why some investors suddenly saw its revision as a cause for alarm. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index rose just 0.05% that day, and commentators didn't mention the China LEI as a factor in trading there or elsewhere. Mainland China's markets were closed then for a holiday. When they resumed trading two days later, the Shanghai Composite fell.

It was the LEI's original, high, mistaken reading for April that was out of step with the broader slowing trend in China's economy. At the time of the original release, the Conference Board struggled to explain the figure, and warned--correctly, as it turned out--that the bump would be 'transitory.'

'The Conference Board's correction to the LEI, although regrettable, brings the index into line with what we've been forecasting for months, which is that growth is going to moderate after the post-crisis cyclical bounce-back,' Adams said.

For those who've been paying attention, it's clear that the Chinese economy has been slowing since the second half of last year as the authorities began to scale back their stimulus programs. And growth is universally expected to slow even more in the rest of 2010, in part because of the government's move in April to cool down the property market.

That is likely to result in weaker construction activity in coming months, though not much of a slowdown is yet apparent in the latest economic data for May. If Tuesday's sell-off in global stocks is anything to go by, markets may not have yet fully priced in the extent of the coming slowdown.

世界大型企业联合会（Conference Board）的一个曾经鲜为人知的指标，在首次发布后不到两个月即占据了全球报纸的头条。

不幸的是，人们关注的是中国4月经济领先指标的向下修正，此前该组织承认在之前的计算中出现了错误。

多数市场评论将周二中国上海综合股价指数大跌4.3%归因于该指标的调整，此后全球其他股市随之下跌，其中道琼斯工业股票指数下挫2.6%。一位名叫德登（Tyler Durden）的博主把对该消息评论的标题定为“大幅下修中国经济领先指标驳斥了中国经济复苏的神话”（下修似乎没有实质改变他对中国经济的悲观态度。）

但市场总是这样，总会出现多种解释：Roubini Global Economics的津巴（Rachel Ziemba）说，上证指数的下跌更可能是因为流动性下降。

就像为其他国家所作的计算，世界大型企业联合会的中国经济领先指标是基于公开获得的中国政府公布的数据，但这一修正没有反映当前数据的变化。

世界大型企业联合会常驻北京经济学家亚当斯（Bill Adams）解释道，当重新编纂4月官方数据时，出现了人为失误，要对中国数据进行许多调整，才能使它们与我们在其他经济领先指标（LEI）内使用的指标直接对比。

全球市场受这一统计数据失误影响的观点，似乎让美银美林（Bank of America-Merrill Lynch）经济学家陆挺尤其恼火。周三他以经济学家的方式发泄了恶气，指责了编纂该指标的方法。在世界大型企业联合会承认和修改的错误以外，陆挺还指出其他几处统计错误，指称该组织的分析师“可能误解”或“没有”执行某种程序。他没有提出确切错误的证据，但告诫投资者不要相信该指标。

当被要求就陆挺的报告作出评论时，世界大型企业联合会的亚当斯说，中国经济领先指标是根据透明和国际可比较方法作出的，我们欢迎分析师就我们的统计方法作出评论。

世界大型企业联合会所作修正引起的噪动中最令人不解的地方是，它没有实质上反映中国经济前景的重大变化。该指标4月的六个月年率变化从9.9%的初值向下修正至6.8%，修正值与1月一样，这显示修正后的数据与近期趋势相符。去年12月以来，经济领先指标一直显示经济在放缓。

令人关注的是，这一错误的初值数据在6月15日公布时没有对全球市场产生明显影响，这使一些投资者突然看到修正值后惊慌不已的原因更加扑朔迷离。当天香港恒生指数仅上涨0.05%，评论家没有把中国经济领先指标当作带动香港或其他股市变动的因素。中国大陆股市当天因公众假期休市。两天后恢复交易时，上证指数大跌。

4月中国经济领先指标错误的初值较高，与中国经济普遍放缓的趋势不符。在初值公布时，世界大型企业联合会努力解释该数据，并警告称上升可能是“暂时的。”

亚当斯说，世界大型企业联合会对中国经济领先指标的修正尽管有些遗憾，但却使该指标符合对未来几个月的预期，中国经济将在危机过后的周期性反弹后开始放缓。

对于那些一直密切关注的人来说，很明显中国经济在去年下半年以来一直在放缓，因为权威机构开始削减他们的刺激政策。人们都预计2010年余下时间经济走势将更加缓慢，部分因为政府在4月采取了措施以冷却地产市场。

这可能导致未来几个月营建活动减少，但5月最新经济数据显示放缓并不明显。如果周二全球股市呈现的跌势将消退的话，这意味着市场可能还没有完全消化未来放缓的程度。