Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Will the RBNZ intervene to weaken the NZ dollar? While Trump’s election win is still causing some uncertainty in financial markets, attention in New Zealand has swiftly moved to the kiwi dollar following comments by Governor Wheeler that the RBNZ... 11th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Market fallout from President Trump may not last long The now-probable election of Donald Trump as US President will continue to send shockwaves through the financial markets for a while yet. But we suspect it won’t be long before the bulk of these moves... 9th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Consumer Confidence (Nov.) Despite the modest fall in the Westpac measure of consumer confidence in November, confidence levels suggest that any slowdown in consumption growth won’t be too severe. More worryingly, the rise in... 9th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Surge in part-time employment in Australia may soon slow While the structural shift towards part-time employment has further to run, an easing in economic growth in industries with a higher than average share of part-time employees suggests that the speed... 7th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly Markets need not worry about Trump too much Should Donald Trump pull off a surprise victory in Tuesday’s US Presidential election, equities, bond yields, commodity prices and the Australian and New Zealand dollars would probably all fall. But... 4th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update The RBA’s tone is becoming more upbeat While the forecasts published in the RBA’s latest Statement on Monetary Policy have hardly changed since the August edition, the tone is much more balanced and could probably even be described as... 4th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Retail Sales (Sep.) The outright fall in real retail sales in the third quarter is consistent with a further slowdown in real consumption growth. That said, the better-than-expected rise in nominal sales in September... 4th November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response International Trade (Sep.) The recent leap in coal prices explains a lot of the sharp narrowing in the trade deficit to a 20-month low in September. If coal prices stay at current levels the deficit could even be wiped out... 3rd November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Update Chances of further cuts fading, but not disappearing The decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia to leave interest rates at 1.5% today may fuel some speculation that the next move in rates will be up, although not for a long time. That possibility... 1st November 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly How fast will inflation rise? Both headline and underlying inflation in Australia will probably rise over the next year and, by boosting economic growth and reducing spare capacity, the recent leap in commodity prices raises the... 28th October 2016 · 1 min read
RBA Watch Rate cutting cycle may not be finished yet While the third quarter inflation data suggest that there is an outside chance that the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates from 1.50% to 1.25% at its policy meeting on Tuesday 1 st... 27th October 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Consumer Prices (Q3) Ignore the larger-than-expected rise in headline CPI inflation in the third quarter, what really matters is that underlying inflation was weaker than the RBA expected. It probably wasn’t weak enough... 26th October 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Chart Pack Commodity prices turning into a tailwind The recent rise in the prices of some key commodity exports will go some way to boosting the national income of both Australia and New Zealand. The surge in the price of coal to a three-and-a-half... 25th October 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly The mixed and messy labour market While the Reserve Bank of Australia would do well to ignore the recent falls in employment, it will be getting more concerned that the rising share of employees working part-time will keep wage growth... 21st October 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Data Response Australia Labour Market (Sep.) The RBA may not be too worried by the further decline in employment in September since the data are subject to a couple of distortions and since the unemployment rate fell to 5.6% from 5.7%. But the... 20th October 2016 · 1 min read
Australia & New Zealand Economics Weekly What next for bond yields? While the recent leap in bond yields in Australia has been larger than the rise in the US, we still believe that over the next couple of years bonds in Australia will outperform those in the US... 14th October 2016 · 1 min read
