S&P Global / Markit Manufacturing PMI from Australia for August 2022. This is the preliminary (flash) reading. The final will be published next week.
Manufacturing flash 54.5
- prior 55.7
Services flash 49.6
- prior 50.9
Composite flash 49.8
- prior 51.1
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Service back into contraction. That is not a happy result, assuming the final release (due in just over a week) confirms it.
The Composite (of the two, manufacturing and non-manufacturing) has slipped into contraction for the first time since January. Australia was emerging from its 2021 lockdowns in January.
Remarks from S&P / Markit:
- “A renewed contraction in Australia’s private sector economy indicates that recent interest rate hikes made by the RBA, as well as sustained inflationary pressures, have begun to take a toll on overall demand levels. Should new order growth remain subdued, this may help reduce demand-pull inflation factors, but survey data continue to highlight the supply issues that remain prevalent globally, which will continue to keep price levels elevated for the foreseeable. As such, the RBA will likely continue along its rate-hiking path, which bodes ill for the wider economy given the latest survey data highlight clear signs of underlying weakness.”
AUD update, it gained on the Chinese rate cuts yesterday but the strength of the USD soon reasserted:
