China's leaders are losing it

Charlene Chu at Autonomous is widely regarded as the "rock star" of China research.

Money managers the world over pay tens of thousands of dollars for access to her work at her firm Autonomous Research. Her reports are rarely leaked; she rarely gives interviews.

Business Insider managed to wangle a copy of her 46-page China roadmap report, out January 4.

It has a bunch of fascinating insights, but one chart jumped out. It sums up the deteriorating level of confidence investors have in Chinese policymakers.

The portion with very low confidence or low confidence jumped from July to December. Just 6.1% now have confidence or high confidence, versus about 23% in July.

It is worth bearing in mind that this survey was carried out in December, before the most recent circuit-breaker snafu.

Ultimately, investors in China are buying the Chinese leadership at this point. The country is trying to manage a transition in the economy, a devaluating yuan and a volatile stock market, all at once.

And if China's leaders are losing the confidence of foreign investors, one can assume things are going to get worse before they get better.