Australia’s terms-of-trade unexpectedly surges

Tuesday 2 June 2020

Within today’s dump of balance of payments data that feeds into tomorrow’s March quarter national accounts release was the important news that Australia’s terms-of-trade unexpectedly surged by 2.9% in seasonally adjusted terms.

This result was unexpected because it contradicted both the RBA’s index of commodity prices, which fell by 2.3% over the March quarter:

As well as the ABS’ import/export price index, which also fell by 5.9% over the March quarter:

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.