CPI comes in high

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the Consumer Price Index for the December quarter and it was soft at 0.2% on the quarter and 1.7% on the year in the headline figures but the analytical series were well ahead of forecast at 0.7% versus 0.5% expected:

DECEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep Qtr 2014 to Dec Qtr 2014	Dec Qtr 2013 to Dec Qtr 2014
Weighted average of eight capital cities		% change	% change

All groups CPI		0.2	1.7
Food and non-alcoholic beverages		0.1	2.0
Alcohol and tobacco		1.7	7.4
Clothing and footwear		0.1	-1.5
Housing		0.5	2.4
Furnishings, household equipment and services		0.5	0.5
Health		-0.9	4.4
Transport		-2.2	-1.9
Communication		-0.1	-3.0
Recreation and culture		1.0	0.8
Education		0.0	5.2
Insurance and financial services		1.0	2.0
CPI analytical series
	All groups CPI, seasonally adjusted	0.3	1.6
	Trimmed mean	0.7	2.2
	Weighted median	0.7	2.3

Hardly high but the dollar immediately took off 80 pips. Full report to follow.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.