The latest Commonwealth Bank Flash Composite PMI® signalled a continued decline in business activity in January. In fact, the latest fall in output was the sharpest since the survey began in May 2016. New orders and employment increased, however, thanks to improvements in the service sector. The rate of input cost inflation softened again to a nine-month low, but companies raised their output prices at a sharper pace than in December.
The headline figure derived from the survey is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Flash Composite Output Index, which is designed to provide timely indications of changes in output in the Australian private sector.
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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.
