China Industrial Profits: Large Firms Up 18.8%, Private Firms Up 8.7% in Jan-Sept

The gap between large and small firms is the more telling detail here: profit growth scales with firm size, which points to scale advantages or policy support accruing disproportionately to bigger players rather than a broad-based industrial recovery. The ownership split reinforces that, with joint-stock firms well ahead of private ones, suggesting the private segment is not yet carrying the same momentum. Whether that divergence narrows in coming data is the open question, since small and private firms are where employment and credit sensitivity concentrate.