US media report China considering steps toward reopening, proceeding slowly, no timeline | Forexlive

The Wall Street Journal (gated) with a fairly vague story, citing unnamed “people familiar with the discussions”.

Yeah, vague, but even vague chatter can be enough to move markets, big time. Chinese stocks, as you’d expect, are particularly sensitive to such rumour and chatter.

Anyway, the Journal (in brief):

• Chinese leaders are considering steps toward reopening
• are proceeding slowly
• have set no timeline
• Chinese officials have grown concerned about the costs of their zero-tolerance approach to smothering Covid-19 outbreaks, which has resulted in lockdowns of cities and whole provinces, crushing business activity and confining hundreds of millions of people at home for weeks and sometimes months on end. But they are weighing those against the potential costs of reopening for public health and support for the Communist Party.

I posted yesterday on a Goldman Sachs view:

GS cite the factors holding back reopening are:

• elderly vaccination rates remain low

and the

• case fatality rates appear high among unvaccinated based on HK official data

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng on a rip the past week or so: