Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Steeper interest rate hikes and larger house price falls Hawkish shifts by the RBA and the RBNZ in recent weeks have prompted us to forecast an even more aggressive hiking cycle by both central banks in the months ahead. Both central banks hiked rates by... 9th June 2022 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Consumption to surge even as real incomes fall We now expect Australia’s inflation to rise by more than 6% this year. Even allowing for an acceleration in earnings growth and a further solid rise in employment as immigration resumes, that will... 17th May 2022 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Central Bankers’ confidence dilemma Inflation is surging in both Australia and New Zealand. That is putting pressure on central banks to hike interest rates to slow the economy and curb inflation. But both the RBNZ and the RBA... 21st April 2022 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Broadening price pressures to prompt rate hikes RBA Governor Lowe noted in a recent speech that the Bank no longer has specific criteria for deciding whether inflation is sustainably in the target range. But he highlighted that along with the... 7th March 2022 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Inflationary surge prompting monetary tightening New Zealand’s inflation surged to a 30-year high of 5.9% in Q4. And while Australia’s 3.5% was much lower, it is well above the RBA’s 2-3% target band. Trimmed mean inflation is about one percentage... 28th January 2022 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Omicron won’t hold back consumption for long The Omicron has lifted new virus cases to a record high, though hospitalisations remain low. We estimate that there are around 2000 hospital beds available for Covid-19 patients in New South Wales... 23rd December 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Diverging outlook for monetary policy While the RBNZ has lifted interest rates by 50bp and signalled that as much as 200bp of tightening is still to come, the RBA’s central scenario remains that interest rates won’t be raised until 2024... 29th November 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Surging inflation puts pressure on monetary policy Trimmed mean inflation rose to 2.1% in Australia in Q3, the first time it has entered the RBA’s 2-3% target band since 2015. Even more strikingly, trimmed mean inflation in New Zealand rose to 4.4%... 29th October 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Early signs of second-round effects from soaring prices The RBA expects headline inflation to drop back from 3.8% in Q2 to 1.5% by mid-2022. By contrast, we now only expect it to fall to 2.5% over this period, reflecting the pass-through from soaring coal... 30th September 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Delta not clipping the wings of RBNZ hawks yet New Zealand has entered a draconian lockdown and new infections continue to rise. The lockdown prompted the RBNZ to refrain from hiking interest rates at its August meeting and financial markets were... 26th August 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Vaccination threshold may be hit in four months With new virus cases hitting fresh highs this week, Sydney’s lockdown has been extended until end-August and looks set to last for months given the high transmissibility of the Delta variant... 30th July 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Vaccine campaigns running into supply constraints With the more contagious delta variant spreading in Australia, half of the population is now in lockdown. This highlights the Achilles heel of both countries’ virus management: their slow vaccine... 30th June 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Fiscal policy to remain loose for longer Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg noted in October that the Government would not pursue budget repair until the unemployment rated was comfortably below 6%. However, the unemployment rate fell much... 31st May 2021 · 10 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Economic recovery facilitates house price surge House prices are now surging in both countries. House price cycles in the Australian housing market tend to lag those in New Zealand a little, which is consistent with the forward indicators pointing... 29th April 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Wage growth near its trough Labour markets in both countries have tightened in recent months. In Australia, the unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 7.1% to just 6.4% in January. And other measures of spare capacity have... 1st March 2021 · 11 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Strong labour markets point to tighter policy Underlying inflation picked up strongly in New Zealand in Q4, with core inflation rising above the mid-point of the RBNZ’s 1-3% target band. That supports our view that the RBNZ will not cut rates... 1st February 2021 · 11 mins read