According to most flow-tracking economists (and not their clueless, conventionally-trained peers) when one strips away  the noise, there are just two things that matter for the global economy and asset prices: central bank liquidity injections, and Chinese credit creation. This is shown in the Citi charts below.

And if indeed it is just these two variables that matter, then the world is set for a turbulent phase because while global central banks liquidity is set to reverse a decade of expansion, and enter contraction some time in Q3 as the great “liquidity supernova” begins draining liquidity for the first time since the financial crisis…

… the latest Chinese credit creation data released on Tuesday, added significantly to the risk of a “sudden global economic stop” after the PBOC reported that in May, China’s broadest monetary aggregate, the Total Social Financing, just posted it smallest monthly increase since July 2016, confirming that Beijing’s shadow deleveraging campaign is accelerating and gaining even more traction, even if the threat of a global deflationary spillover is rising by the day.

A quick look at the numbers reveals that there was not much of a surprise in traditional new RMB loans, which rose RMB1150bn in May, slightly below consensus RMB1200bn, growing 12.6% yoy in May.

However, it was the sharp, unexpected plunge in Total social financing growth, which attracted attention and which rose only RMB 760.8bn in May, almost half the consensus print of RMB1300bn, and sharply below April’s RMB1560bn increase.

Of the main TSF components, the drop in shadow bank lending was particularly sharp: this has been the area where Beijing has been most focused in their deleveraging efforts as it’s the most opaque and riskiest segment of credit. And, as the chart below show, the aggregate off balance-sheet financing posted its biggest monthly drop on record in May.

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