Economic Update February 2019

Within this month’s update, we share with you a snapshot of economic occurrences both nationally and from around the globe.

Markets roar back to life!

– Federal Reserve clarifies its position
– China data were weaker than expected
– Australian rate cuts on the horizon

We hope you find this month’s Economic Update as informative as always. If you have any feedback or would like to discuss any aspect of this report, please contact us.

The Big Picture

We reported last month that we had the Australian and US stocks markets as being  meaningfully under-valued. Well they are much less so now after a very strong rally during January.

The turn-around in markets started straight after Christmas and gained momentum throughout January as the US Federal Reserve (“The Fed”) made increasingly dovish tones – so much so that the chance of a rate hike this year is now estimated by the market to be minimal. A chance of a cut this year now has gained some support among the analyst community.

The end of January Fed meeting produced a no-change result on rates and the chairman emphasised the word “patience” in his press conference about the timing of future moves. The accent is once again firmly on “data driven” policy changes rather than following a pre-set course.

The US-China trade stoush took a few more twists and turns. The threat of more tariff increases looms large but could well be averted. The China economy is clearly in need of avoiding that situation and so some solution may come soon. China did offer to reduce the trade balance with the US to zero over the next 6 years, however, more needs to be done to address what is characterised as the rampant abuse of intellectual property rights.

US employment data series were particularly strong. A much bigger than expected 312,000 new jobs were created. Unemployment came in at 3.9% pa and, importantly, wage growth was a far more respectable 3.2% pa. The weakness in the US economy mooted by some does not seem to be showing through in the data – at least not yet.

China inflation data – both consumer and producer variants – came in weaker than expected. GDP growth was 6.6% for the year – which was on expectations – but import and export data were weaker.

The weakness in China data is nowhere near as bad as some are making out. There is a natural progression from the double-digit growth of a decade ago to more moderate levels as any country matures.  The Chinese government is putting in place policies to combat any slowdown so we do not see modest softness in GDP growth becoming a problem unless Trump brings the next round of tariff hikes into play.

At home, the biggest change has been the attitude towards possible rate cuts by the RBA. This was almost unheard of a month or so ago but the muttering has become louder. Indeed, one leading analyst reported a 36% chance of a rate cut this year.

One reason for a cut is that the NAB and ING just finished the out-of-cycle home loan rate increases. The second is that our CPI inflation data has been persistently lower than the target band of 2% to 3%. The latest reading was 1.8% making it 15 out of the last 17 quarters that the rate has been below the target range.

The RBA has a dual mandate. First it must try and keep full employment. At the current 5% that could be said to be have been fulfilled as there is no prescribed number. The second is to keep inflation within the target band. The RBA has failed in that regard – even in any ‘average over the cycle’ sense.

Our employment data was quite strong again this month but, as always, our immigration numbers helps underpin that and more generally economic growth.
In short, the US Fed has learnt its lessons from making last October’s ill-advised comments. If Trump can be a little more compliant, the US does not seem to be an issue – and neither then would China. And if/when we get a rate cut (or two) from the RBA, we’ll be doing better too. We reiterate our view that Australian and US stock markets barring any unforeseen events are forecast to have an average year of returns.