Yesterday saw the release of the quarterly edition of the NAB Business Survey. I don’t usually bother reporting it because it largely repeats the monthlies but there was one point of interest. Capex intentions bounced:
NAB itself was pretty downbeat on the development:
According to the NAB survey measure of business capital expenditure, business investment growth may lift modestly in the next 12 months. However, caution should be used when interpreting capex data as mining respondents are under represented in our survey, meaning the degree of slowing in mining investment may not be fully captured. Indeed, the mining capex index is the worst performing amongst the major industries, at -10 points (-19 points for 12 months ahead), consistent with expectations of a decline in the level of mining capex reported by the ABS. Capex across the non-resources sector generally softened, continuing to be crowded out by mining investment, although construction was a notable exception.
We can probably take it as some indication of rising capex intentions in non mining then – as opposed to a lift in overall capex – which is still a welcome sign and not unexpected given the lift in housing construction.
