What does this mean?

Tesla delivered over 484,000 cars in the fourth quarter, a few thousand more than expected but not enough to retain its crown as the world’s biggest EV firm by sales. That comes after Warren Buffett-backed BYD reported over 526,000 battery-only vehicles sold during the same time frame, a record number driven mainly by its much broader line up of cheaper models in China. Tesla surpassed its annual goal of 1.8 million deliveries, the number fell well short of CEO Elon Musk’s best-case projections – with even a bunch of price cuts failing to stoke enough demand for the firm’s EVs.

In a first for the US, the country overtook Australia and Qatar to become the world’s biggest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG). The US exported a record 91.2 million metric tons of LNG in 2023, helped by the restart of the Freeport LNG facility in Texas, which was shut down after a 2022 explosion. Europe’s scramble to wean itself off Russian gas made it a lot easier for US LNG firms to find buyers, further boosting exports.

Food has been a major catalyst of rising inflation in the UK over the past couple of years, with blocked supply chains leading to limited inventories and making everyday essentials more expensive. However, it looks like the Bank of England’s inflation-fighting interest rate hikes are finally paying off. Annual grocery price inflation eased from 9.1% in November to 6.7% in December – the fastest month-over-month drop since records began in 2008.

Inflation in the eurozone picked up last month, highlighting the tricky path back to the European Central Bank’s 2% target and raising questions over how soon it will deliver interest rate cuts. Consumer prices in the bloc rose by 2.9% in December from a year ago. This matched economist forecasts; it was a move in the wrong direction after November’s 2.4% pace. The increase was driven mostly by energy costs, after some governments ended gas and electricity subsidies. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy items, slowed for a fifth straight month, to 3.4%.

Global investors began 2023 buying Chinese stocks at a record pace, boosted by hopes for a post-Covid market revival. Investment flows soon headed into reverse as folks started to worry about a housing slump, rising geopolitical tensions, and more. Foreigners have sold more Chinese shares than they’ve bought since August, when property developer Country Garden's missed bond payments exposed the depth of the nation’s real-estate crisis. That left the balance of foreign flows into Chinese shares at just 30.7 billion renminbi ($4.3 billion) for the year – the least since 2015.

China’s 'Purchasing Managers’ index (PMI) showed factory activity in the country shrank for the third consecutive month in December. The official manufacturing PMI fell to 49.0 from 49.4 the previous month, leaving it below the crucial 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction and short of the 49.6 that economists had expected. The data provided new signs of weakness in China’s economic rebound and will probably intensify calls for further government stimulus – especially given policymakers’ recent pledge to maintain a pro-growth stance in 2024.