Playing Inflation Chicken With Wonky Monthly Data

You will recall that Australia’s October monthly CPI indicator from the Australian Bureau of Statistics came in below market expectations at 4.9%/yr (versus the consensus of 5.2%/yr). There were a number of factors which messed with the data, as I discussed in a previous show. According to CBA, other surveys also suggest that trimmed mean CPI in Q4 23 is unlikely to be stronger than the RBA’s ~1.0%/qtr forecast. But these monthly numbers are flaky, because the critical services price movements are not captured until the quarterly series which is due out in January. As I discussed in my earlier […]