Manufacturing data from China this week confirmed that the worst of the mainland’s slowdown was over. The official purchasing managers’ index or PMI for January came in under expectations dropping to 50.4 from 50.6 in December.   However a second factory PMI from HSBC which focuses more on small private companies jumped to a two-year high of 52.3 from last month’s 51.5.   "I'm pretty confident that the worst [of Asia's slowdown] is behind us " said Tim Condon ING's head of research for Asia according to the Wall Street Journal. "The disconcerting thing about the official PMI from ...