Entrepôt regions slowing fast

As you might expect, Austria is strongly correlated with the pan-Europe PMI (purchasing manager indices).  Austria is located in the heart of Europe, and the inheritor of the central role that Vienna played in the Austro-Hungarian empire and in Mittel Europa.  Vienna is a classic entrepôt city like Hong Kong, connecting Germany to Hungary and Slovenia, Czechia to Italy, Germany to Croatia, Slovakia to Switzerland, and so on.  Vienna is just 20 - 40 kilometres from the Czech, Slovak and Hungarian borders.  Actually, even though I knew all this, I was still surprised at how good the correlation was.  Anyway, the advantage of the Austrian PMI is that it is released a few days before the final estimate of the Europe PMI, so it gives us an early guide to the rest of Europe.

Austria is definitely slowing, a sign that its entrepôt trade is slowing and that Europe as a whole is doing likewise.  And the "flash" pan-Europe PMI for August confirms this.

That other famous entrepôt city,  Hong Kong,  is also slowing fast--and in fact has gone negative.  I have followed activity in Hong Kong for decades because as Austria is to Europe, it is to China and more broadly, the world.  Entrepôt cities are sensitive to conditions in their regions.  That both Hong Kong and Austria are weakening is significant.  Hong Kong's slowdown is a clear indication that China has slowed, probably quite abruptly.