Australia & New Zealand Data Response Private Capex Survey (Q2) & Building Approvals (Jul.) Just 18 months after it got going, the recovery in private investment appears to be running out of steam. This partly explains why we estimate that GDP in the second quarter may have risen by just 0.5... 30th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Households holding up well Australian households have been more resilient to low income growth and falling house prices than we expected. After rising by just 0.3% q/q in the first quarter, the solid rises in retail sales in... 29th August 2018 · 1 min read
RBA Watch Is the Governor warming to the idea of raising rates? Although the Reserve Bank of Australia will once again leave interest rates at 1.5% at the policy meeting on Tuesday 4th September, we sense that Governor Lowe has started to send some subtle signals... 28th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Is the dollar pondering a Labor government? This week’s political chaos has increased the downside risks to the Australian dollar. Although the markets welcomed the news that Scott Morrison has replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Australia’s Prime... 24th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Economy can cope with surge in political uncertainty As politicians don’t influence the economy by as much as they’d like to believe, the growing uncertainty over the Prime Minister’s position is unlikely to significantly dent activity. That said... 22nd August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Drought won’t dent the economy much The recent drought is hurting many farmers, their communities and the agricultural sector. But it is unlikely to put a big dent in the output of the whole economy or significantly raise CPI inflation. 20th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly The dollar, wages and the inflation target The weakening in the Australian dollar to a 19-month low will provide a small boost to CPI inflation, but it won’t solve Australia’s persistent problem of low wage growth. While lowering the RBA’s... 17th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Labour Market (Jul.) The surprise decline in employment July isn’t a big concern as other evidence suggests the economy has not stalled. But even if the labour market were to shift back into top gear in the coming months... 16th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Wage Price Index (Q2) We suspect that the continued stagnation in real wages in the second quarter will contribute to an easing in consumption growth this year, while the absence of a meaningful rise in nominal wage growth... 15th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update The tide may turn in favour of the dollar next year Even though both the Australian and New Zealand dollars have weakened by more than 10% this year and have pretty much hit our end-year forecasts, the risks still lie on the downside. The tide may turn... 14th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Putting the housing downturn into context The fall in house prices seen so far is small by the standards of the average Australian downturn. But a further tightening in credit criteria may contribute to it morphing into the deepest and... 13th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Divining in different directions The chances that interest rates in Australia will rise a bit earlier than we expect have grown this week while it has become more likely that interest rates in New Zealand will be unchanged for longer... 10th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update RBA paints a near-perfect picture of the economy The Reserve Bank of Australia’s new projections that the economy will be in an almost perfect state in 2020 suggest that the Bank is edging ever so slowly towards raising interest rates. Our view that... 10th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update RBA sounds upbeat, but still a long way from hiking The Reserve Bank of Australia appeared a bit more upbeat on the outlook for the domestic economy while leaving interest rates at 1.5% for the 24 th month today, but it continued to hint that interest... 7th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update China’s tariffs may help LNG exports in the long-term Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) producers are unlikely to benefit much from China’s proposal to impose a 25% tariff on LNG imports from the US simply because China doesn’t buy that much LNG... 6th August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Lending, house prices and retail sales With the housing market slowdown in danger of morphing into the deepest and longest in Australia’s modern history, we doubt that the recent resilience of household spending will last. The risk is that... 3rd August 2018 · 1 min read
