A Puzzling Anomaly: Rising PMI In The EU/US, Falling Asian Exports

Hitherto, an uptick in manufacturing activity (captured by Purchasing Manager Indices) in developed markets such as the EU and the US signalled a corresponding boost for exports out of Asia.

But something in Deutsche Bank’s predictive model, which held up for 15 years, has changed, and Chief Economist Taimur Baig is puzzled: he has to contend with a rather large forecasting error just thrown up by the model.

Asian exports appear to have lost their traditional sync with US/EU manufacturing/demand indicators, according to data through July.

The blip in the US Q1 GDP was apparently not sufficient to account for...