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 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 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 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 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
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update RBA will probably cut rates to 0.5% While the RBA lowered the cash rate to 1.0% at today’s meeting, it signalled that it won’t ease policy any further for now. However, we think that the Bank remains too optimistic about the outlook for... 2nd July 2019 · 3 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Dovish central banks set to cut rates further he subdued global outlook and weakness in domestic economic activity has caused us to revise down our forecasts for interest rates in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, annual GDP growth slowed... 1st July 2019 · 9 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response CoreLogic House Prices (Jun.) We expect the pace of house price declines will continue to gradually ease this year with house prices reaching a trough by the end of the year. We suspect house prices may start to rise again... 1st July 2019 · 2 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly We now expect one extra cut by the RBA & RBNZ Following dovish comments from the RBNZ this week we now expect the Bank to cut rates to 1.0% by the end of the year. Meanwhile, our forecast that the RBA will cut rates to 0.5% by early next year... 28th June 2019 · 6 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update New Zealand - RBNZ will probably cut rates to 1.0% The RBNZ’s dovish tone supports our view that the Bank will cut rates again before the year is out. In fact, we now think the Bank will cut at its next meeting in August, and once more at its November... 26th June 2019 · 3 mins read
RBA Watch RBA may eventually cut rates to 0.5% We expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut interest rates to 1.0% at the meeting on Tuesday 2 nd July. And given that the Bank would like to see a much lower unemployment rate, we now think that... 25th June 2019 · 7 mins read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly RBA thinks about China slowdown & QE The RBA seems to be getting more concerned about a slowdown in China’s GDP growth and the recent slowdown in visitor arrivals from China will only exacerbate those worries. Meanwhile, Governor Lowe... 21st June 2019 · 1 min read