Focus of the yesterday's session was on Australian Current Account figures and RBA interest rate decision. The current account deficit, seasonally adjusted, fell $403m (11%) to $3,108m in the March quarter 2017. There was an increase of $3,129m (51%) on the balance on goods and services, resulting in a surplus of $9,242m in the March quarter 2017. The primary income deficit rose $2,712m (29%) to $11,940m. In seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, the surplus on goods and services fell $2,966m (85%) from $3,509m in the December quarter 2016 to $543m in the March quarter 2017. This is expected to detract 0.7 percentage points from growth in the March quarter 2017 volume measure of GDP.
At its meeting yesterday, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 1.50 per cent. The broad-based pick-up in the global economy is continuing. Taking account of the available information, the Board judged that holding the stance of monetary policy unchanged at this meeting would be consistent with sustainable growth in the economy and achieving the inflation target over time.
From Australia, tomorrow, GDP figures will be published. Analysts anticipate 0.2% growth. There will be no major data releases in the US part of the session.
Figures to watch:
GDP (Wednesday 3:30)
