People's Leader Xi makes another Beijing inspection; Official outbreak data's positive trend; US responds to WSJ expulsions;

There was terrible economic data out of China on Saturday and there are increasing fears the COVID-19 virus is spreading throughout the world. The PRC and US stock markets were up big Monday. Bad news is good news for the markets if it means stimulus and more central bank money printing I guess.

Seriously though, while the data out of China was bad it was not unexpected. From many accounts economic activity is slowly returning in the country, though it is far from back to normal. But there is so much pressure from the top leadership and from people and companies at risk of running out of money that, so long as the epidemic outbreak in China looks like it is coming under control, the odds of a quickening return to normalcy are growing.

A V-shaped recovery however is increasingly at risk as the virus spreads globally and may slow the economies of key PRC trading partners. The propaganda positives of highlighting the CCP’s success in fighting the epidemic as other large countries flail wou…