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Prediction Series · Lock · Issue P-224
Prediction Series · P-224

The 34-month streak — PPI stays below zero, at 90%.

90% probability China's producer price index for October 2026 is still below zero year-on-year. It was −3.5% in July, narrowing from −4.1%, in a deflation streak now 34 months long. Crossing into positive territory in three months would take a 3.5-point swing.

Type · Prediction Lock · deflation-persistence, thesis test (anti-side) Locked · 2026-08-27 · before the October release Resolves · ~2026-11-09 · China National Bureau of Statistics PPI (stats.gov.cn) Scored · binary: October 2026 PPI < 0.0% YoY yes/no
China October 2026 PPI · our locked call
< 0%
producer price index, year-on-year · vs −3.5% in July 2026

China's producer price index fell 3.5% year-on-year in July 2026, narrowing from a 4.1% decline in June but missing expectations of a 3.8% drop, extending a deflation streak of 34 consecutive months. Consumer prices rose 0.5%. Chinese export prices were around 4% below a year earlier and roughly 10% below two years earlier. Source: China National Bureau of Statistics, July 2026.

— 1 · The Locked Call

China's October 2026 PPI is still below zero — P = 0.90.

We lock a binary: China's producer price index for October 2026 remains below 0% year-on-year. Confidence 90%. In plain terms: Chinese factory-gate deflation persists.

— 2 · Half of a deliberate two-sided test

This lock argues AGAINST the idea that China is exporting inflation. P-225 argues for it.

This brief exists because a proposition was put to us — that China, having expanded its money supply, will now export inflation rather than the disinflation it has exported for years — and we tested it instead of assuming it. At the Chinese end the evidence points the other way. Producer prices have fallen for 34 consecutive months, they were −3.5% in July, and export prices sat about 4% below a year earlier. Reaching zero by October requires a 3.5-point swing in three months, against structural overcapacity and weak domestic demand that policymakers are still fighting. Confidence 90% and not higher precisely because the trend IS narrowing — from −4.1% to −3.5% in a single month — and a commodity or energy shock feeding industrial input costs would accelerate that. Read this together with P-225, which locks the opposite side of the same question at the US border. If both resolve HIT, the finding is that the transmission channel has decoupled from the source prices, and that is a more interesting result than either lock alone.

Locked on 2026-08-27 — scored against the NBS October 2026 producer price index.

RAOSCAFF locks P-224 on 2026-08-27, before the October release. Scored against China's October 2026 producer price index year-on-year rate versus a zero threshold.

Locked
2026-08-27 (commit timestamp on origin/main)
Resolves
~2026-11-09 — China National Bureau of Statistics October 2026 price indices
Source
China National Bureau of Statistics, Producer Price Index for industrial products, year-on-year rate (stats.gov.cn)
Scored by
Binary: YES if the October 2026 PPI year-on-year rate is BELOW 0.0% (that is, still deflationary); NO if it is 0.0% or above. The headline PPI for industrial products — NOT the purchasing price index for industrial producers, NOT CPI, and NOT the month-on-month rate.

The streak IS narrowing — −4.1% to −3.5% in one month. A commodity or energy shock feeding input costs would accelerate the crossing.