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3 Apr 2014
Busy calendar in Australia today - Westpac
FXStreet (Bali) - Sean Callow, FX Strategist at Westpac, outlines the significance of today’s Australian data calendar on his daily market update, which includes Feb retail sales and Feb trade balance at 00.30GMT.
Key Quotes
"AUD is usually most sensitive to retail sales, which has beaten consensus in each of the past 6 months, as consumer spending has produced an impressive acceleration, confirmed in the Q4 GDP where the household saving rate finally dipped below 10%. Jan rose a startling 1.2% so a much softer reading is likely in Feb. Westpac looks for 0.5%, the median forecast is 0.3%, but the range is a wide -1% to +0.8%. Beyond the Feb data, we expect the pace of consumer spending to moderate, given softer confidence surveys, especially related to the uptrend in unemployment."
"Australia should report a fourth consecutive monthly trade surplus in Feb, albeit not as large as Jan’s A$1.4bn, the strongest reading since Aug 2011. Westpac looks for imports to rise 1% while exports should dip -1%, with commodity prices lower but volumes mixed (coal up, iron ore down). Lunar new year and a large seasonal impact from weather disruptions give us lower than normal confidence in our forecast of A$900mn. The median forecast is 800mn, with a very wide range of -1.1bn to +1.8bn."
"RBA Governor Stevens speaks to an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia lunch in Brisbane from 1:50pm Syd/10:50am Sing/HK, which will of course be watched closely. The audience suggests a speech including some discussion of US-Australia trade and investment but at the very least we can expect AUD to be raised in the Q&A."
Key Quotes
"AUD is usually most sensitive to retail sales, which has beaten consensus in each of the past 6 months, as consumer spending has produced an impressive acceleration, confirmed in the Q4 GDP where the household saving rate finally dipped below 10%. Jan rose a startling 1.2% so a much softer reading is likely in Feb. Westpac looks for 0.5%, the median forecast is 0.3%, but the range is a wide -1% to +0.8%. Beyond the Feb data, we expect the pace of consumer spending to moderate, given softer confidence surveys, especially related to the uptrend in unemployment."
"Australia should report a fourth consecutive monthly trade surplus in Feb, albeit not as large as Jan’s A$1.4bn, the strongest reading since Aug 2011. Westpac looks for imports to rise 1% while exports should dip -1%, with commodity prices lower but volumes mixed (coal up, iron ore down). Lunar new year and a large seasonal impact from weather disruptions give us lower than normal confidence in our forecast of A$900mn. The median forecast is 800mn, with a very wide range of -1.1bn to +1.8bn."
"RBA Governor Stevens speaks to an American Chamber of Commerce in Australia lunch in Brisbane from 1:50pm Syd/10:50am Sing/HK, which will of course be watched closely. The audience suggests a speech including some discussion of US-Australia trade and investment but at the very least we can expect AUD to be raised in the Q&A."