No Evidence. And No, That Is Not A Misprint.

China got back to work on Wednesday after a long holiday, and immediately dispatched Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman with a flair for the dramatic, to handle Mike Pompeo’s brazen accusations around the origins of the coronavirus.

Hua came across as less hyperbolic than usual, perhaps because state media had already assailed Trump’s top diplomat in laughably overwrought terms on Monday and Tuesday.

“Mr. Pompeo cannot present any evidence because he does not have any”, Hua told her regular briefing in Beijing, referencing Pompeo’s contention (to ABC) that there’s “enormous evidence” to support the assertion the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. “This matter should be handled by scientists and professionals instead of politicians out of their domestic political needs”, she added.

You can expect much, much more of this going forward. Recrimination is the name of the game now. And Pompeo will always be short on evidence precisely because China will never let the US gather any. And, now that Donald Trump has defunded WHO and accused the organization of being complicit in a Chinese coverup, Washington won’t be able to rely on the body to assist the administration when it comes to assigning blame.

“We will continue supporting the WHO and support looking back and summarizing the experience at an appropriate time to support global health cooperation and so we can better deal with pandemics like this in the future”, Hua went on to remark, during a briefing that lasted a solid hour.

Meanwhile, we now have single-digit PMIs to marvel at.

I’ve variously suggested that some of the economic data became wholly meaningless in this crisis – and not just because most of it has a kind of “well, what did you expect?” feel to it. Rather, there is no informational value in a sub-10 PMI, which raises questions about whether it even makes sense to gather that manner of data during total collapses (or during overt booms, for that matter). Spain’s services PMI for April printed 7.1. Italy’s was just barely better at 10.8. The new business gauge in Italy was 9.1.

“Given the restrictions on economic activity currently in place across Spain, April’s devastating PMI data may well not come as a surprise to many commentators”, IHS Markit’s economic director Paul Smith said. “Nonetheless, observing the sheer scale of the drop in many survey indicators lays bare the impact that the pandemic is having on Spain’s economy”.

Europe is tentatively lifting restrictions and lockdown protocols in an effort to resurrect the bloc’s economy from this scorched earth scenario, but it’s going to be a long, arduous road back. Politicians’ mettle will be tested by potential increases in infection rates as person-to-person contact resumes.

In the UK, the construction PMI dropped to 8.2 in April. That is quite remarkable even by the standards of the current apocalyptic economic backdrop. Consider that consensus was looking for 21.7. March’s read (itself affected by the pandemic) was 39.3.

“Though a fall in output was not a complete surprise, the scale and suddenness of the drop has knocked the wind out of building work in the UK”, CIPS’s Duncan Brock said. “More vulnerable than other sectors that make up the UK economy, construction was unable to continue in any significant capacity, as companies grappled with furloughed staff and building sites under complete shutdown”.

Finally, if you’re wondering which nation has the dubious distinction of sporting the worst PMI on the planet, it’s India. The services gauge dropped 43.9 points (!) from March to April to just 5.4.

“The extreme slide in the headline index… shows us that the strict lockdown measures have led to the sector essentially grinding to a complete standstill”, IHS Markit economist Joe Hayes said. “Historical comparisons with GDP data suggest that India’s economy contracted at an annual rate of 15% in April”.

Earlier this week, Maruti, Mahindra and Hyundai, the country’s top automakers, said they shipped no vehicles to dealers last month. None. Zero. “There’s always a first time for everything”, Maruti’s Chairman R.C. Bhargava told Bloomberg.

Commenting on the world’s worst PMI read, Rabobank said simply: “That is not a misprint”.