Australia: Business conditions tracking up towards long-run average – ANZ

Catherine Birch, senior economist at ANZ, points out that Australian business conditions have shown gradual improvement over the past few months but mixed results in the sub-indices suggest that the ground remains a little unstable.

Key Quotes

“Business conditions recorded a slight increase (+0.3pts unrounded) in November, but this followed a 1pt upward revision to +4.0 in October. However, business confidence dropped from +2.0 to +0.1.”

“The spike we saw in forward orders in October didn’t last, as it fell back to -2.3, but this was still the second-strongest result since April. Profitability jumped to +3.2, an eight-month high. However, capacity utilisation has fallen for three consecutive months, signalling upside risk for the unemployment rate.”

“Business conditions in mining have been volatile over the past few months and fell to -4.9pts in November. This is despite the strength in resource exports and upbeat investment plans by mining firms. Although retail remained deep in negative territory, conditions improved to a seven-month high. Finance services and recreation services maintained the strongest industry business conditions but manufacturing also bounced back into positive territory.”