Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen Every man and his dog knows that Australian consumers are gouged and paying too much for goods when compared against their foreign counterparts.

The lash of karma is beating Robert Gottleibsen today: …Let’s look at what is happening to cause the commodity rout and where there could be some good news.

FTAlphaville’s Izabella Kaminska last night delivered a post on the de-financialisation of commodities that should make every Australian policy-maker cry.

By Leith van Onselen Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the Australia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) have called for wage restraint and a prolonged period of real wage cuts, claiming that it vital to restore the economy’s competitiveness and combat rising unemployment.

Some very good if overdue analysis today from Morgan Stanley: The Macro Outlook Has Deteriorated Whilst the unwind of Australia’s resources boom has been the “known” challenge for several years, the ability to transition the economy through this and again avoid an official recession has remained a topic of market conjecture.

The second of Australia’s PMI’s, this one for services, is out and is sinking fast: The seasonally adjusted Australian Industry Group Australian Performance of Services Index (Australian PSI®) declined by 1.8 points to 43.6 points in October, the lowest reading since August 2013.

By Leith van Onselen With yesterday’s strong iPhone 6-induced retail sales easily beating analyst’s expectations retail sales are now expected to make a positive contribution to Australia’s September quarter GDP when the national accounts are released on 3 December.

From the SMH blog: Here are some early responses from economists to this morning’s data dump, ahead of the RBA’s rate decision at 2:30: Kieran Davies, Barclays: We think consumer spending is back on track for a solid gain this year.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released trade data for the month of September, with Australia recording a seasonally-adjusted trade deficit of $2,261 million.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released retail sales figures for the month of September, which registered a 1.2% seasonally-adjusted rise in sales over the month, beating economist’s expectations of a 0.3% rise.

By Leith van Onselen The ANZ-Roy Morgan Research (RMR) consumer confidence index was steady in the week ended 2 November at 114.6, remaining just above its long-run average reading of 113.2 (see next chart).

For fun only:   The first Tuesday in November has arrived and the Macquarie Quant team have focussed their factor model on Flemington, transforming racing stats into traditional Quant signals to rank the runners in the race.

By Leith van Onselen Victoria’s Taxi Services Commission has turned up the heat on Uber’s risesharing service, Uber-X, ordering it to cease operations because it is “illegal” and issuing fines of up to $7,500 to driver found operating illegally.

Not here (at least, not in the CPI).

ANZ job ads for October are out and are showing signs of fatigue rising just 0.2%.

The TD Securities-Melbourne Institute’s monthly inflation number is out and rose 0.2 %in October following a 0.1 per cent rise in September.

Yes, it’s a rebound in the PMI, to shrinking more slowly: The Australian Industry Group Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI®) increased by 2.9 points to 49.4 points in October (seasonally adjusted), indicating conditions were very close to stable across the manufacturing sector this month (readings below 50 points indicate contraction).

By Leith van Onselen NAB chief, Andrew Thorburn, appeared on AFR Sunday yesterday, calling for Australian businesses to display more “hunger” and ambition to ­compete in the global economy.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released export and import prices for the September quarter, which portends big falls in Australia’s terms-of-trade when the national accounts are released next month.