Big Data Week, Watch GDP, CPI And Retail Sales

There is a heavy calendar this week and the focus is likely to be January retail sales and Q4 GDP and January CPI to gauge where activity levels were coming into 2023 and how households are faring.

• On Monday, company operating profits and inventories print with the former expected to rise 1.8% q/q after falling 12.4% in Q3 and the latter flat. On Tuesday the current account is projected to widen to $5bn and net exports contribute 1.3pp to GDP from -0.2pp.
• Q4 2022 GDP is forecast to rise 0.7% q/q after 0.6% the previous quarter, which will bring the annual rate to 2.7% from 5.9% due to Covid-related base effects, but in line with the RBA’s downwardly revised February forecast.
• January retail sales are released on Tuesday and are expected to rebound by 1.5% m/m after the seasonally-impacted -3.9% December result.
• January CPI data print on Wednesday and are projected to ease to 8.1% y/y from 8.4% but the monthly data doesn’t cover all series and the first month of the quarter doesn’t include utilities, medical services, child care, autos or restaurant meals updates.
• Wednesday also sees the February CoreLogic house price series which has been falling steadily at around 1.1% since May 2022. It is off 9.7% from its April 2022 peak. January home loans print on Friday and are forecast to fall another 3% m/m after -4.3% the previous month. The RBA’s private sector credit series are released on Tuesday.
• The final February Judo Bank composite PMI is published on Friday and manufacturing on Wednesday. They are often revised up in the second print.
• Building approvals for January are released on Thursday and are expected to decline 7.5% m/m after +18.5% with private houses down another 2.1% m/m after -2.3%.