It does not tend to have much of an immediate impact on the AUD. Nevertheless, a useful indicator for the economy ahead (it has been persistently indicating sub trend growth).
-0.28% m/m
- previous +0.15%, revised from +0.14%
Takes the index to 97.54
WPAC on the result:
- The six month annualised growth rate … which indicates the likely pace of economic activity relative to trend three to nine months into the future, fell from +0.01% in July to -0.35% in August.
- Last month's improved signal has been very short lived
- Index growth rate back firmly in negative territory where it has been stuck for eight of the last nine months
- relapse confirms the consistent signal from most of those preceding months that the economy will continue to be operating at a below trend growth pace into late 2019 and early 2020
- Westpac expects that the economy's growth pace will pick up from the 2% annualised pace in the first half of 2019 to 2.5% in the second half and hold at around that 2.5% pace in the first half of 2020.
