Domestic Data Recap

• August household spending edged higher by just 0.1% m/m (5.0% y/y), undershooting forecasts. While growth has clearly slowed from earlier in the year, the broader picture still shows a consumer sector that is holding up.
• The monthly trade surplus narrowed sharply to $1.8bn in August, its smallest reading since mid-2018. The decline was driven by weaker non-monetary gold exports and a broad-based increase in imports across categories.
• A major bank has revised its outlook, cautioning that Q3 underlying inflation is now likely to overshoot the RBA’s August projections.
• Their forecast sees trimmed mean inflation printing at 0.9% q/q (2.8% y/y), well above the RBA’s 0.64% q/q expectation. The RBA itself acknowledged earlier this week that recent, albeit partial, data indicate greater upside risks to inflation heading into the 29 October release.