Winter Is Coming: China's Real Estate Market Cools, Singapore's Economy Grinds to A Halt, Another Emergency Fed Meeting

iFeng: 全国楼市现降温信号 三线城市房价降幅最大

Sales in 90 percent of Chinese cities fell in the first week of April. In 28 key cities monitored, sales fell an average of 23.2 percent.

Average sales decline in first-tier cities: 27.4 percent. Beijing declined 30 percent. Shanghai fell 17.2 percent. Shenzhen decreased 31.1 percent and Guangzhou tumbled 37.8 percent.

The average decline in second-tier cities was 20.9 percent.

Third-tier city sales: down 35.1 percent.

Centaline reports similar, though less severe data and blames it on March being a peak month for activity:

On the same day, the statistics released by Centaline Property Research Center also shows that the market turnover has dropped slightly, early April 54 City 97600 total contracted residential units, a 112,800 units in March down 13.5%. Among them, the first-tier cities fell more obvious, a decrease of 18%. Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing and other cities have different degrees of decline.

For the property market turnover decline, Centaline Dawei, chief analyst believes that the key cities in March and daily room rates climbed to a new high, and rose to the most in history. "The market shot up after the somewhat lower in April, but still high. Which, by the attention of the market in Shanghai and Shenzhen, after harsh New Deal, appeared last week, markets dropped significantly." He said.

The data is weekly and deserves a grain of salt as always, but it is surprising for the third-tier to be cooling more than top cities. First-tier cities implemented strict buying restrictions and have extremely difficult comparisons due to sales spikes in March; third-tier cities are still easing yet having no luck.

On to Singapore. Bloomberg: Singapore Adopts 2008 Crisis Policy as Growth Grinds to Halt

The Monetary Authority of Singapore moved to a neutral policy of zero percent appreciation in the local dollar, it said in a statement on Thursday. The currency slid the most in five months after the announcement, which came as a surprise to 12 of 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg, who had seen no change in policy.

The article comes with a familiar chart of the global economic slowdown.

The last time the MAS shifted its currency policy to zero appreciation was in October 2008, when the economy was in a recession. Thursday’s move was the bank’s second unexpected decision in less than 16 months, following an emergency policy change in January last year to combat the threat of deflation.

The Federal Reserve is sending out smoke signals whether it wants to or not. ZH: The Fed Just Held An Emergency Meeting To Discuss Capital Markets

We do know, however, that it is a very busy week for unexpected, emergency meeting for the Fed, because according to the Fed's board meeting website, today at 3pm the Fed held yet another previously unscheduled "meeting under expedited procedures", only instead of discussing rates this time, the Fed talked about institutions, infrastructure and financial markets.