Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Surging GDP, stationary RBA The recent stellar performance of the Australian economy hasn’t made it much more likely that the RBA will raise interest rates sooner because it is businesses that are benefiting most not households... 7th September 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Rising mortgage rates, housing and the RBA Australia is still a very long way from a recession or a financial crisis, but this week’s news that Westpac is hiking its mortgage rates has raised the risk a bit. After all, higher mortgage rates... 31st 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 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 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 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
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Stronger growth failing to boost inflation The fall in underlying inflation in the second quarter in Australia revealed this week has made us more confident in our non-consensus call that underlying inflation will stay below the RBA’s 2-3%... 27th July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly The strong labour market and the cautious RBA The financial markets are probably right to assume that the release of June’s bumper labour market figures has increased the chances that the Reserve Bank of Australia will raise interest rates a bit... 20th July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Too early to sound all-clear on credit conditions Housing finance commitments have started to edge up again and suggest that house prices won’t fall much further for now. Households are taking the weaker housing market in their stride and APRA... 13th July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Policymakers, housing and households As well as fretting about the rise in global trade barriers, policymakers in Australia are also becoming more worried about housing. And rightly so. After all, some of the most reliable leading... 6th July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly RBA, funding costs and mortgage rates The recent rebound in short-term funding costs is not big enough to prompt all banks to raise their mortgages rates by more than a few basis points. But the risk that funding costs rise further is one... 29th June 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Trade war, the dollar and the RBA The combination of the escalation in global trade tensions and some dovish developments at home have dragged down the Australian dollar to a one-year low of US$0.74. We suspect it will weaken further... 22nd June 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly The RBA’s requirements for a rate rise Governor Lowe outlined in a speech earlier this week that before interest rates are raised from their record low of 1.5% the RBA will want to have “reasonable confidence that inflation is picking up... 15th June 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Relying again on resources In order to grow by 3.1% in the year to the first quarter, the Australian economy returned to the old habit of relying on resources. This won’t be possible in the second quarter nor in the coming... 8th June 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly How much support will non-mining investment provide? While the outlook for non-mining business investment in Australia is fairly encouraging, we aren’t expecting an appreciable pick-up in total private investment growth. That’s largely because the... 1st June 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly A $100 oil price would not be a disaster We still believe that the oil price is more likely to fall from US$80 per barrel to US$65 rather than rise to US$100 as some have suggested. But even if it did hit US$100, inflation in Australia... 25th May 2018 · 1 min read
