A Critical Chinese Economic Report Is Coming Out Tonight

At 8:45 PM EST tonight, we'll get the HSBC Flash manufacturing PMI report.

Economists expect the number to rise to 50.8 from 50.5 a month ago.

Overall, the recent data out of the world's second largest economy has been bullish. Earlier this month, we learned that retail sales and industrial production had accelerated in November.

"The Chinese economy is undoubtedly heating up," said SocGen economist Wei Yao.

However, November trade data was unexpectedly weak raising doubts about the recovery. Exports slowed substantially and import growth fell to zero.

"We believe the big volatility in export growth since Sep 2012 could be driven by a bunch of factors such as working days and base effects, but we would like to highlight that strikes in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California from 27 Nov to 4 Dec could play a role as these two ports handle 40% of American imports (surely much more of imports from Asia)," said Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Ting Lu.

China is a key source of growth for the global economy. As such, all eyes will be on China tonight.

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