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
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Retail Sales (Jun./Q2) Households appear to be coping well with the hit to their real spending power from rising petrol prices and the hit to their net wealth from falling house prices. But with house prices starting to... 3rd August 2018 · 1 min read
RBNZ Watch New Zealand - Hinting that rates may rise later While leaving interest rates at 1.75% at the policy meeting on Thursday 9 th August, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will probably acknowledge the recent softening in activity by revising down the GDP... 2nd August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response International Trade (Jun.) The recent fall in the Australian dollar may mean that over the next year the external sector will give the economy a bigger helping hand. But in the second quarter, it looks as though net exports... 2nd August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response CoreLogic House Prices (Jul.) The acceleration in the housing downturn in July should make the RBA and some other analysts sit up and take notice. What’s more, the worst is yet to come. Our relatively bearish forecast that prices... 1st August 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response New Zealand - Labour Market (Q2) Although the labour market remains fairly healthy and employment is still within the RBNZ’s measures of the “maximum sustainable level”, the rise in the unemployment rate in the second quarter coupled... 1st August 2018 · 1 min read
RBA Watch Another year of inaction ahead The combined message from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s policy announcement on Tuesday 7 th August and the publication of the Statement on Monetary Policy on Friday 10 th will probably be that even... 31st July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update New Zealand - Activity proxy forewarning of 2% GDP growth Our New Zealand Activity Proxy suggests that the economy lost further momentum in June and that GDP may now be growing by just 2.0% a year. Most worrying are the signs that the slump in business... 31st July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economic Outlook Life without the booms The end of Australia’s housing boom and New Zealand’s migration boom mean that economic growth in both countries will probably fall short of expectations over the next couple of years. Australia may... 30th July 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 Data Response Labour Market (Jun.) The labour market is improving quicker than the RBA expected, but it is probably the case that the unemployment rate would have to fall below 5.0%, other measures of spare capacity would have to... 19th July 2018 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response New Zealand - Consumer Prices (Q2) The small strengthening in underlying price pressures in the second quarter is unlikely to make the RBNZ any keener to raise interest rates when it is becoming clearer that economic growth is slowing... 17th 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
