Been Waiting for this for Months

U.S. March Trade Deficit Narrowed More Than Forecast - Bloomberg

Seems that imports dropped the most in six years. Somehow this has again "surprised" economists. Wow. And I thought that people imported more stuff when their money was devalued by 20%+ and the economy tanked. Well, I guess we won't hear any politicians whining and moaning about the trade deficit this election cycle.

Demand for goods from China suffered the biggest slump last month, helping to narrow the trade gap with that nation to $16.1 billion, the smallest in two years. At the same time, exports to China were the second-highest ever. - Bloomberg (see link above)

I'm still expecting this trend to cause more carnage in the Shanghai stock market. Unfortunately, my speculation in FXP (ultrashort Shanghai 25) has so far been a 30% loss. This is mostly due to the fact that Hong Kong shares have rallied even as the Shanghai traded issues have remained weak. I knew this would be speculative and volatile, and I will continue to stick it out. I expect Chinese inflation will continue to accelerate, putting upward pressure on the Yuan. This loss of sales together with higher exchange rate costs will put huge pressure on earnings growth in the Chinese export dominated economy.

In other news, AIG announced almost $8 billion in losses. Funny, they still continue to say that financial company quarterly reports are "earnings" announcements, when they should really be called "losses" announcements.

I've stuck with my shorts through two months of bear market rally now, and I expect it to pay off soon.