Australian Economy

By Leith van Onselen As is customary following the quarterly national accounts release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), I have once again benchmarked Australia’s economic recovery since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) against the recessions of the 1970s, 1980s and the 1990s.

For anyone that follows these things, CBA’s various economics teams are the very obvious one-eyed bulls of the Australian economic scene.

By Leith van Onselen As summarised by Houses & Holes earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released the national accounts for the March quarter, which registered a 1.1% increase in real GDP over the quarter and a 3.5% rise over the year.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released National Accounts data and it’s good as expected at 1.1% for the quarter and 3.5% for the year: The only real surprise for me is private gross-fixed capital formation (investment) which added to GDP on smaller falls: Income also improved though that will be temporary.

By Leith van Onselen Today’s March quarter GDP result, which will be released by the ABS at 11.30, is expected to be solid.

Yesterday Barack Obama declared a war on coal in the US.

Find below Westpac economist, Matthew Hassan’s, take on today’s RBA decision, which left rates on hold and maintained its forward view of an “extended period of stability”: As widely expected, the Reserve Bank Board left the cash rate unchanged at 2.50% at its June policy meeting.

From Westpac: Q1 net exports: +1.4ppts Net exports made a very sizeable contributution to growth in Q1, adding 1.4ppts. That exceeded expectations (mkt median 0.8 and Westpac 0.9).

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released retail sales figures for the month of April, which registered a 0.2% seasonally-adjusted increase in sales over the month, missing economist’s expectations of a 0.3% rise.

By Leith van Onselen It appears the “sticker shock” from the Federal Budget may finally be wearing-off, with the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan Research consumer confidence index recording its first rise in six weeks, lifting 2.9 points to 102.2 (see next chart).

Dun and Bradstreet’s May update of business expectations for the quarter ahead is beginning to erode right on cue.

By Leith van Onselen At Kearney has published a new report measuring foreign direct investment (FDI) confidence across major economies, which shows that confidence in Australia as a destination for FDI has slipped, falling to 8th place in 2014 from 6th place in the previous two years (see below table).

From Westpac comes the below analysis of today’s TD Securities/Melbourne Institute (MI) Inflation Gauge for May, which is pointing to rising inflationary pressures: The Gauge rose 0.3% in May following 0.4% increase in Apr and a 0.2% rise in Mar and Feb.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released Mineral & Petroleum Exploration data for the March quarter, which revealed a sharp fall in mineral exploration expenditure, but a rebound in petroleum exploration expenditure. Nationally, expenditure on minerals exploration fell by a seasonally-adjusted $48.9 million (-9.2%) over the March quarter.

Someone in the PM’s office seems to have lost their moral compass.

The TD Securities/Melbourne Institute (MI) Inflation Gauge for May is out at .3% and year on year is 2.9% (chart from COMMSEC).

For some time now MB has tracked the war on youth that has engulfed Australian public policy.

The Australian PMI for May is out and:   The latest Australian Industry Group Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI®) moved up by 4.4 points to 49.2 points in May (seasonally adjusted). This signalled the seventh consecutive month of contraction in the manufacturing industry (readings below 50 points indicate contraction).