Australia & New Zealand Economics Focus Outlook for Australian services exports good, not great While exports of services will continue to grow rapidly over the next decade, they won’t boost GDP by anywhere near as much as resources exports have. For that to happen, countries such as China and... 13th April 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Actions rather than words may be needed to weaken the Australian dollar We were right to suggest that, while leaving interest rates on hold at 2.0% today, the Reserve Bank of Australia would use the policy statement to try to talk the dollar down. Whether or not this will... 5th April 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia International Trade (Feb.) The unexpected widening in the international trade deficit in February and revisions to past data suggest that GDP growth may have slowed sharply in the first quarter. This makes it more important for... 5th April 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Retail Sales & Building Approvals (Feb.) Although February’s building approvals data were broadly in line with expectations, retail sales were much weaker than expected and suggest that real consumption growth may have slowed notably in the... 4th April 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Is a debt crisis in Australia really just around the corner? We can’t rule it out completely, but recent suggestions that Australia is the second most likely country in the world to suffer a debt crisis and recession in the next one to three years seem... 1st April 2016 · 1 min read
RBA Watch RBA may try to talk the dollar down While the Reserve Bank of Australia will almost certainly leave interest rates at 2.0% at the policy meeting on Tuesday 5th April, it may try to give activity and inflation a boost by attempting to... 30th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Recent resurgence in housing won’t last The resurgence in Australia’s housing market at the start of this year is already looking a bit tired. The delayed impact on activity from last year’s rises in mortgage rates, the recent deterioration... 24th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Housing market running out of puff More worrying than the 0.5% q/q seasonally adjusted fall in the ABS measure of Australian house prices in the fourth quarter of last year (+0.2% q/q unadjusted) is that the subsequent rebound is... 22nd March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Election and Census will further distort labour market data There is not enough evidence to conclude that the recent sharp slowdown in employment growth in Australia is due to fears over the health of the global economy rather than statistical noise. This year... 18th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Labour Market (Feb.) The recent stagnation in employment is probably just payback from the unjustified strength late last year rather than a sign that fears over the global economy have prompted businesses to postpone... 17th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Will rates in New Zealand fall below those in Australia? The recent interest rate cut in New Zealand and the dovish comments by the RBNZ now mean it is easy to imagine a scenario where interest rates in New Zealand fall below those in Australia. That would... 11th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Consumer Confidence (Mar.) The relatively small fall in the Westpac measure of consumer confidence in March should be considered a fairly good result when set against the extent of the weakness in the financial markets earlier... 9th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update RBA may have to step in to weaken dollar The strengthening in the Australian dollar to an eight-month high of US$0.74 has left it at a level that poses a serious threat to the economic outlook. This may prompt the RBA to resume its campaign... 7th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Households help Australia outperform its peers Even though it has faced a very testing set of circumstances, Australia has continued to outperform most of its peers and hasn’t done too bad by its own standards either. A lot of the credit needs to... 4th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Retail Sales (Jan.) Retail sales in January were slightly weaker than expected and suggest that consumption growth may have softened at the start of the year. Nonetheless, there is little evidence that the turmoil in... 4th March 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia International Trade (Jan.) The unexpectedly large narrowing in the international trade deficit in January suggests that the resurgence in the Australian economy in the second half of last year may have continued at the start of... 3rd March 2016 · 1 min read
