China’s factory activity contracts in October – Caixin PMI

BEIJING, Nov 1 (Reuters) – China’s factory activity unexpectedly contracted in October, a private survey showed on Wednesday, raising questions over the state of the country’s fragile economic recovery at the start of the fourth quarter. Adding to a downbeat official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) on Tuesday, the survey suggested the manufacturing sector is still not on solid footing despite China’s better-than-expected third quarter gross domestic product growth. The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing PMI fell to 49.5 in October from 50.6 in September, marking the first contraction since July and missing analysts’ forecasts of 50.8 by a large margin. The…