Mixed Chinese October manufacturing PMIs

At 49.8 China's 'official' manufacturing sector purchasing managers' index for October came in just shy of the 50.0 mark expected by the market, reflecting a third consecutive month of contraction in the sector.

That led at least two well-known pundits to muse about the need for further stimulus in Asia's largest economy.

In parallel, China's non-manufacturing PMI slipped to its lowest point since december 2008.

Caixin's manufacturing PMI on the other hand improved by 1.3 percentage points to 48.3 (consensus: 47.6).

That was indicative of the sector still "struggling," Deutsche Bank said. Nonetheless, the broker's Zhiwei Zhang noted that the rise in the non-official [manufacturing] reading was the biggest so far in 2015. Combined with some of the strength in key subcomponents (namely output and new orders) Zhiwei thought that was consistent with his expectation that economic activity was picking up in the fourth quarter.

The economist reiterated his forecast for GDP to rebound to a 7.2% pace from the 6.9% clip observed in the third quarter.