We’re heading into the first quarter GDP release next week and Goldies is not up beat:
Bottom line: Ahead of the official update next week, preliminary trade data point to a $1.0bn widening in Australia’s international trade deficit in 1Q2015 and an ~10bp drag to growth from net exports. On balance, this data are slightly weaker than we expected, and our preliminary GDP estimate for 1Q2015 is just +0.3% qoq. This implies a pronounced -80bp deceleration in the annual rate of GDP growth to just +1.7% yoy early in 2015. We will revisit our 1Q2015 GDP estimate on receipt of the construction/capex data to be published over the coming days.
