News on the manufacturing front turned negative even before China’s Delta outbreak made global headlines. The Caixin Manufacturing PMI surprised on the downside earlier in the week, with a 50.3 reading for July, well below the 51 that markets had been expecting. Two oft-cited reasons for the miss – logistical supply chain disruptions and higher input prices – can only be expected to worsen should the virus continue to spread. Interestingly, state PMI data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics raised another red flag in declining export orders over the month of July, a trend that ongoing Delta outbreaks in export markets around the world will only exacerbate moving forward.