Record exports, record imports, and then a GDP miss 24 hours later. One of my assumptions about how these numbers fit together is wrong.

I have been running China as a single macro bet for two years, and the data sequence on July 14 and 15 broke something I thought I understood. On July 14, customs reported June exports at $412.4 billion, up 27% year over year, an all time record. Imports hit $286.8 billion, also a record, up 36%. The arithmetic is clean: $412.4 billion minus $286.8 billion equals about a $125.6 billion surplus, the second largest on record, per Bloomberg and CNBC. My priors said record exports plus record import