DECOUPLING: China’s retail sales disappoint as stimulus fails to spur demand; industrial output defies tariffs.

Retail sales rose 5.1% from a year earlier in April, missing analysts’ estimates of 5.5% growth, according to a Reuters poll. Sales had grown by 5.9% in the previous month.

Industrial output grew 6.1% year on year in April, stronger than analysts’ expectations for a 5.5% rise, while slowing down from the 7.7% jump in March, indicating the impact from U.S. tariffs was not as harsh as was being expected.

“We should be aware that there are still many unstable and uncertain factors in [the] external environment,” the statistics bureau said. “The foundation for sustained economic recovery needs to be further consolidated.”

Fixed-asset investment for the first four months this year, which includes property and infrastructure investment, rose 4.0%, slightly lower than analysts’ expectations for a 4.2% growth in a Reuters poll.

The urban unemployment rate in April eased to 5.1% from 5.2% in March, at a time when U.S.-China trade war had led economists to warn about substantial job losses in China.

We have to rely on polls to try and figure out what’s going on in China because Beijing stopped reporting key economic figures in recent years.