Alboflation hot to trot in January

Wednesday 25 February 2026

The ABS monthly number is out, and whoa! Both headline and trimmed mean came in 10bps above consensus.

The details aren’t good, either. How has Australia managed to experience 4% goods inflation while China is flooding the world with dirt-cheap products displaced from the US?

Energy shock, I’m guessing.

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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.