Focus of Tuesday's session was on RBA Meeting Minutes. Australia’s central bank said record-low interest rates are underpinning consumer spending and house building while a lower currency is improving firms’ competitiveness. “Members noted that recent domestic data had, on balance, been positive and judged that there were reasonable prospects for growth to increase gradually over the forecast period,” the Reserve Bank of Australia said Tuesday in minutes of its Feb. 2 policy meeting when rates were left unchanged at 2 percent.
It reiterated the approach set out in recent communication that it will monitor whether strong jobs growth is sustained and whether recent global market turmoil affects the domestic economy. It also repeated that contained inflation provided further scope to ease should that be needed. “Over the period ahead, new information would enable the board to assess whether the recent improvement in labor market conditions was continuing and whether recent financial market turbulence presaged weaker global and domestic demand,” it said. “The board noted that the outlook for continued low inflation may provide scope for easier monetary policy, should that be appropriate to lend further support to demand.”
From Australia, on Thursday, job figures were released. Australian employment decreased 7,900 to 11,894,500, thus missing forecasts on increase by 12,900. Full-time employment decreased 40,600 to 8,185,800 and part-time employment increased 32,700 to 3,708,700. Unemployment increased 30,200 to 761,400. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 25,600 to 544,100 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 4,600 to 217,300. Unemployment rate increased 0.2 pts to 6.0%. Analysts were predicting no change. Participation rate remained steady at 65.2%.
This week markets will be looking at:
Construction Work Done (Wednesday 1:30)
Wage Price Index (Wednesday 1:30)
Private Capital Expenditure (Thursday 1:30)
