Week in review
- U.S inflation falls to 6.4% y/y
- Australian unemployment rate rises to 3.7%
- Australia consumer confidence falls to 78.5
Week ahead
- RBA minutes of monetary policy meeting
- Eurozone and U.S. PMIs
- Eurozone consumer confidence
Thought of the week
Australian businesses started the year on the right foot. Both business conditions and business confidence survey readings jumped in January. Of the two metrics, business conditions is more closely aligned with the health of the domestic economy and suggests only a gradual slowing in economic activity. The report showed that labour demand was still high as employment intentions picked up but was off from last year’s peak. The findings from survey suggests a gradual slowing of employment growth in the coming months. Something corroborated in the recent employment report. The other take away related to price pressures and the impact on inflation. Both purchase costs and final product price indices rose, going against the more recent runs of declines. The implication could be that the RBA is right when it thinks inflation will take longer to receded based on this survey data. However, with the sharp change in expectations for rates in Australia since the end of January, its difficult to say that businesses will remain as confident. .
Conditions still favourable for Australian business
Index