Australia & New Zealand Data Response Retail Sales (Jun./ Q2) The weakness in real retail sales in Q2 suggests consumption growth remained sluggish in the second quarter. That’s one reason why we expect GDP growth to slow from 2.8% in 2018 to just 1.5% this year... 2nd August 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response CoreLogic House Prices (Jul.) House prices appear to be bottoming with an average increase in prices across the eight capital cities in July. We expect prices will remain around this level for the rest of 2019 before rising by 3%... 1st August 2019 · 2 mins read
RBA Watch RBA to take a breather before cutting rates further We expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to take a breather and leave rates on hold at 1.0% at its upcoming meeting on Tuesday the 6th of August following the back to back rate cuts in June and July... 31st July 2019 · 7 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Consumer Prices (Q2) Underlying inflation remained subdued in the second quarter and we think increasing spare capacity in the Australian economy means it will fall further below the RBA’s 2-3% target over the next year. 31st July 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Falling profitability to weigh on investment The slowdown in domestic economic activity along with global trade tensions is becoming more of a concern for businesses in both countries. That means that sentiment has not been bolstered by the... 30th July 2019 · 10 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Treasurer unlikely to shift the goal posts The Treasurer is currently reviewing the RBA’s inflation target before he signs the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy. We doubt there will be any major changes and Governor Lowe gave a... 26th July 2019 · 6 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Benefits from lower company tax rate would be small Australia’s corporate tax rate remains one of the highest in the world. However, the boost to GDP growth from lowering it towards the levels seen elsewhere would probably be quite small. 24th July 2019 · 4 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update State infrastructure spending won’t come to the rescue The federal government has urged state governments to step up infrastructure spending. But given the deterioration in their finances, we suspect that states are more likely to reduce capital spending. 22nd July 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Outlook for gas sector challenging The US may overtake Australia and Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of LNG by 2024 as production costs in the US are lower than in Australia. For now, that’s not too big a concern as the... 19th July 2019 · 4 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Labour Market (Jun.) We think the slowdown in employment growth has further to run and suspect that the deterioration in the labour market will cause the unemployment rate to rise before the year is out. 18th July 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Focus Will the RBA use unconventional tools? Our central scenario is that cutting interest rates to 0.5% will be sufficient to restore growth and eventually return underlying inflation to the RBA’s target. If more stimulus were required, the... 17th July 2019 · 18 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Consumption growth ‘deemed’ to be weak The consensus is slowly edging closer to our forecast that GDP growth in 2019 will be just 1.5%. And high levels of household debt and a lack of fiscal stimulus mean that growth will probably remain... 12th July 2019 · 5 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economic Outlook Aggressive easing heralds end of housing downturn Australia’s housing downturn will probably come to an end towards the end of the year. That means that the drag from falling housing wealth on consumer spending will subside. It also means that... 10th July 2019 · 22 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Hopes for additional fiscal stimulus dashed The economy is now getting support from all sides, with the RBA cutting interest rates, Parliament passing the tax cuts promised in the Budget and APRA loosening constraints on mortgage lending this... 5th July 2019 · 4 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Retail Sales (May) The weakness in retail sales so far in Q2 suggests consumption growth remained sluggish in the second quarter. Sluggish consumption is one reason why we expect GDP growth to slow from 2.8% in 2018 to... 4th July 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response International Trade (May) The record trade surplus in May was supported by the recent surge in iron ore prices so will not completely flow through to stronger net exports in Q2. Even so, we expect net trade to continue to make... 3rd July 2019 · 2 mins read
