Australia & New Zealand Data Response New Zealand Consumer Prices (Q2) The weak tone of the CPI inflation data for the second quarter probably means that at Thursday’s unusual inter-meeting economic update the RBNZ will hint that it intends to use tighter lending... 18th July 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly The part-time problem Most of the rise in the share of people working part-time is due to long-term factors that have improved the flexibility of Australia’s labour market. However, some of it is due to weak economic... 15th July 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update New Zealand - New Zealand dollar won’t continue to defy gravity The New Zealand dollar may not to be able to defy gravity for much longer as a shrinking interest rate premium could drag it down from US$0.73 now to around US$0.65 by the end of the year. That would... 12th July 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Why the AAA credit rating doesn’t matter While we doubt that the loss of Australia’s AAA credit rating would be followed by a rise in borrowing costs for the government, states and banks, it would nonetheless highlight that the burden to... 8th July 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Households can cope with lower wealth Although the recent poor performance of equity prices means that household wealth may decline in the first half of the year, we doubt this will significantly restrain consumption growth. Households... 1st July 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Focus A new era of very low inflation The unusually low rates of underlying inflation in both Australia and New Zealand will remain a thorn in the side of policymakers for a number of years yet. This explains why we believe that the... 30th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Brexit not a major threat Last week’s vote by the UK to leave the EU isn’t a major threat to the Australian and New Zealand economies, especially when the resulting volatility in the financial markets appears to be fading. 27th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Underlying inflation to remain low While GDP growth was stronger than expected in Australia and New Zealand in the first quarter, this doesn’t alter our view that underlying inflation will remain low for a while yet. The Australian... 22nd June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Australia need not fear a Brexit The sharp falls in equity prices in Australia in response to the rise in the chance that the UK may vote to leave the EU seem overdone. A Brexit is unlikely to be a disaster for the global economy... 17th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response New Zealand GDP (Q1) The rise in GDP in the first quarter doesn’t make the RBNZ any less likely to cut interest rates to 2.0% at the next policy meeting in August. And we believe that a combination of weaker GDP growth... 16th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Hot housing fires up policy debate If the housing markets in both Australia and New Zealand remain strong, then our forecasts that interest rates will fall to 1.0% in Australia and to 1.75% in New Zealand would look out of reach... 10th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update New Zealand - Housing heat changes RBNZ’s rate-cutting timetable Despite leaving interest rates at 2.25% today, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand still hinted that they may fall to 2.0% before long. What’s more, we still think there’s a chance that rates may have to... 9th June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly First quarter good, second quarter not so good The leap in GDP in Australia in the first quarter doesn’t significantly alter the outlook for underlying inflation, especially if we are right in thinking that economic growth will drop back below the... 3rd June 2016 · 1 min read
RBNZ Watch New Zealand - RBNZ is not done yet The Reserve Bank of New Zealand will almost certainly cut interest rates from 2.25% to 2.00% at its next policy meeting on Thursday 9th June. Although we don’t expect the RBNZ to signal this month... 2nd June 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Stuck in transition It always seemed unlikely to us that non-mining investment would seamlessly fill the hole left by the plunge in mining investment. This is especially the case when the economy is saddled with a large... 27th May 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Non-mining investment failing to fill the hole Although GDP growth in Australia in the first quarter probably at least matched the 0.6% q/q rate in the fourth quarter of last year, the continued disappointment is the failure of non-mining... 26th May 2016 · 1 min read
