Asia’s electronics powerhouses and the Port of Los Angeles just gave three more reasons to believe that even with all the uncertainties around the global pandemic recovery, goods trade looks to be doing just fine.
Taiwan export orders posted another blockbuster print, rising 33.3% year-on-year in March. And over the past few weeks we’ve also gotten more affirmation of the semiconductor binge, with critical chipmaker TSMC reporting better-than-expected earnings and seeing the semiconductor crunch lasting into 2022.
South Korea’s first-20-day shipments surged 45.4% in April, due in part to a low base from a year earlier, but also revealing especially strong volumes and widespread demand by region and product.
Analysts at HSBC are seeing a still-strong 2021 for the electronics sector that’ll continue to lift Asia’s trade engines as well as global goods trade. “It’s not just semiconductors that are ’on fire’: broader demand for electronics, from consumer to industrial goods, keeps on strengthening,” they said in an April 14 report.
The Port of Los Angeles, for its part, exploded with imports in March, sending that gauge more than eight standard deviations above its long-run average. Ports globally are dealing with backlogs in unloading container ships (including in neighbor Oakland, where the backup is arguably worse), and it’s not just the Suez Canal squeeze that has them behind schedule. Demand is overwhelming the local labor and infrastructure needed to process it.
Elsewhere on Bloomberg’s Trade Tracker, we can expect some noise in year-over-year readings that are compared to abysmal second-quarter prints last year. But where base effects are not an issue, positive signs abound.
We’ve selected measures across shipping, sentiment and export volumes to watch for signs of stress amid the tensions. For the clearest indication, we measured how far each gauge is from historic norms.