The ABS has released “Business Indicators” which are partial inputs into this week’s GDP figure and they portend badly:
DECEMBER KEY FIGURES
Sep Qtr 14 to Dec Qtr 14 |
Dec Qtr 13 to Dec Qtr 14 | |||
% |
% | |||
| ||||
Sales of goods and services (Chain volume measures) | ||||
Manufacturing | ||||
Trend |
-0.3 |
-2.1 | ||
Seasonally Adjusted |
0.0 |
-2.5 | ||
Wholesale trade | ||||
Trend |
0.3 |
1.1 | ||
Seasonally Adjusted |
0.3 |
0.7 | ||
Inventories (Chain volume measures) | ||||
Trend |
0.4 |
0.4 | ||
Seasonally Adjusted |
-0.8 |
-0.5 | ||
Company gross operating profits | ||||
Trend |
-1.8 |
-7.3 | ||
Seasonally Adjusted |
-0.2 |
-5.9 | ||
Wages and salaries | ||||
Seasonally Adjusted |
0.3 |
1.8 | ||
|
The big one is inventories, dropping 0.8% versus 0.1% expected. That is going to drag sharply on GDP and most forecasts, which are around 0.6% and 2.5%.