Surplus shrinks on gold

ABS International Trade in Goods and Services for October is out and shows a contracting surplus:

OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Aug 2011	Sep 2011	Oct 2011	Sep 11 to Oct 11
		$m	$m	$m	% change
BALANCE ON GOODS AND SERVICES
	Trend estimates	2 116	2 147	2 156	. .
	Seasonally adjusted	2 627	2 249	1 595	. .
CREDITS (Exports of goods & services)
	Trend estimates	27 167	27 404	27 573	1
	Seasonally adjusted	28 036	27 369	27 320	–
DEBITS (Imports of goods & services)
	Trend estimates	25 052	25 257	25 416	1
	Seasonally adjusted

I’ve been expecting this on the falls in the bulk commodities but, at least for October, that is not what happened. Here are the major exports:

Ore and coal barely budged. Most of the drop came in gold exports. That does not bode well for the next few months. We know the bulks were off a lot in price in October with no evidence of offsetting volumes but some respite from the dollar so perhaps the contract system has saved us for the October month.

It gets a bit weird when look at imports:

The rise in gold imports was also the largest component. So the surplus largely contracted on falling gold exports and rising gold imports. Go figure.