Asia today - the yuan, Chinese inflation, oil/Russia, singles day and APEC

So on the day that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are holding their first meeting interesting that China lifted the fix on the yuan by 0.37% today (the biggest daily move since June 2010) placing it at its strongest valuation since mid-March against the US dollar.  So at the moment no 'currency war' against the recently sharply weaker Japanese yen. That may be to come if economic conditions dictate.

The rationale for a weaker exchange rate for China is potentially seen in the latest inflation numbers which are also out today and which remained weak:

The producer price index fell 2.2% from a year ago, its 32nd consecutive decline, as sluggish demand curbed the pricing power of companies. 

Another interesting development - this time more structurally positive - was the announcement that the exchange link between Hong Kong and Shanghai will debut in a week's time and which will aim to 'give foreign investors unprecedented access to China’s $4.2 trillion equity market. To augment this is this interesting link here about burgeoning ETF flows which notes two important facts:

• The success of the $457 million Deutsche X-trackers Harvest CSI 300 China A-Shares ETF (ASHR), which has lured more money than any other China-focused ETF since it was launched a year ago
• The CSI 300 has a weighting of about 18 percent in consumer-related companies, versus 5 percent for the Hang Seng China Enterprises index of Hong Kong-listed shares. 

Demand and a strong theme (in the rise and rise of the Chinese consumer).  How's the Chinese index performed against the S&P again over the last five years?

A few other snippets from China.  Anticipated investment increases over the next year are proportionately the highest in the region...

...also chat about a new Russia-China deal:

'OAO Gazprom is discussing the supply of as much as 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually from West Siberia over 30 years'.

Recall that Putin called the earlier agreement between state-run Gazprom and its Chinese partners “epochal.” and that under the agreement earlier this year, China will import 38 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia annually over three decades starting as soon as 2018.

Tomorrow is 'double 11' or 'singles day' in China (for everything about the celebration see the
link here):

Why mention this in a business-related website?  Well it is also the biggest postal gifting day of the Chinese calendar. Sorting rooms look like this:

Great news for Alibaba amongst others.  Anticipate seeing some amazing e-commerce growth numbers out of China later this week.  

Finally I enjoyed this via @Thats_Beijing with reference to the ongoing APEC summit:

You know Obama is in town when…2nd Ring is virtually empty at 9:30am this morning