See the world through the eyes of an economist: Rents, CBA forecasts and job ads.
These are the charts that caught my eye this week. First up, SQM Research released their rental data, which saw unit rents post a small fall – the first since Covid. Detached housing rents however continue to rise.
CBA published their forecasts for inflation. Interestingly, they expect inflation to be much lower than the RBA is currently predicting.
The key argument here is that inflation on discretionary items – which are more sensitive the economic cycle, are crashing quickly. Headline inflation will follow in short order. For that reason, CBA is not expecting more rate hikes this cycle.
The number of job ads newly advertised on SEEK in Australia fell 1.5% in June, back to its pre-Covid average.
All of the job ads series in Australia (there’s a few of them) are now falling quickly, suggesting weaker labour market outcomes ahead.
Retail trade numbers were up a little in the month. Growth has been flat for a while, but in a levels sense, remain well up on their pre-Covid trend. It could be worse.
And finally, not that anyone is counting, but America has far and away the most number of stars on it’s flag. Australia is outside the top 10. Good job ‘Merica.
And that’s how the world looked through the eyes of an economist this week.
DB.