If you are like me and have just returned from holidays, you might be unaware that a bunch of data pertaining to the Australian economy was released over the holiday break. Below is a summary of the main data sets:
RP Data-Rismark home values indices:
As noted last by Delusional Economics last week, RP Data-Rismark released its home values results for the month of December, which registered a -0.3% fall over the month and a -1.2% decline over the December quarter at the national capital city level. As always, performance varied significantly across capital city markets, as shown in the below table:
Nationally, home prices fell by -0.4% in the 2012 calendar year, which marked the second consecutive annual fall after values fell by -3.8% in calendar year 2011. Home prices nationally were down-5.8% since values peaked in October 2010, although once again there was significant divergence across the capitals:
The next chart shows the movement in the five major capitals on a 14-day moving-average basis. As you can see, values rebounded strongly after bottoming in late-May, before once again edging lower in the most recent quarter:
For what it’s worth, the RP Data-Rismark daily home values indices has begun 2013 on a positive note, recorded a strong 0.4% increase in values in the first week of January.
RBA Credit Aggregates:
On New Year’s Eve, the RBA released the private sector credit aggregates for the month of November, which registered no change (0%) in aggregate credit growth over the month and 3.5% total credit growth over the year.
Housing credit increased by 0.4% over November, to be up by 4.6% over the year. Other personal credit decreased by -0.2% over November and was down -0.7% over the year. Whereas business credit decreased by -0.6% over November but was up 2.4% over the year.
While annual housing credit growth (4.6%) hit the lowest level in the series’ 36-year history, credit growth has clearly picked-up in the most recent quarter which, other things equal, should provide some support to housing values:
RBA index of commodity prices:
On New Year’s day, the RBA released its index of commodity prices, which registered a small 0.8% increase in prices in Special Drawing Rights (SDR) terms and a 0.9% increase in Australian dollar terms over the month of December, primarily on the back of rebounding iron ore prices.
Given the recent surge in iron ore prices, which have risen by around $US30 per tonne over the past month to over $US150 per tonne, we expect that the next RBA commodity price index report will show strong improvement.
Over the next week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will release a raft of economic data, including:
- International Trade in Goods and Services – today;
- Job Vacancies – Wednesday;
- Retail Trade – Wednesday;
- Building Approvals – Thursday;
- Housing Finance – Monday;
- Overseas Arrivals and Departures – Monday.
Stay tuned as I will be covering each release.