China's shifting economy mints US corporate winners, losers

China is losing its appetite for dump trucks, iron ore and construction cranes. But the Chinese still want to travel and give their kids a better education.

Growth in the world's second-largest economy is decelerating and rattling financial markets around the world. Behind that slowdown is an evolutionary shift in China's economy— from a dependence on exports and investment in factories and housing — to a reliance on spending by its emerging middle class.

That transition, a gradual and perhaps painful one, will affect which U.S. companies stand to benefit and which will be squeezed as China's growth slides from the double-digit annual rates of the mid-2000s to 7 percent, 6 percent, maybe even less.