Current account balance and net exports

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

The ABS has just released the June quarter current account figures and the deficit was a little better than expected at -11.8 billion instead of 12.2 expected:

That puts the current account deficit somewhere in the 3.5% of GDP range (using the back of an envelope!) Not too bad.

Net exports, however, was less positive coming in at half expectations 0.3% versus 0.6% expected. This is a clear downside risk for consensus GDP tomorrow:

The dollar got a little lift from the data, not sure why.

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.