Busy Week, Focus On Retail Sales (Mon) & CPI (Wed)

There is a lot of data this week but the focus is likely to be on July CPI (Wednesday) and retail sales (Monday).

• Today July retail sales print and are expected to rise 0.2% m/m after falling 0.8% m/m, which would result in 1.8% y/y growth. The new CBA household spending insights has a high correlation with retail sales and it was flat in July to be up 1.3% y/y.
• On Tuesday RBA Deputy Governor Bullock speaks on “Climate change and central banks” at 1740 AEST.
• July CPI is out on Wednesday and is forecast to moderate to 5.2% from 5.4% with projections in a wide range between 4.7% and 5.9%.
• There is quite a bit of housing/building data this week. On Wednesday Q2 construction is released and forecast to rise 0.8% q/q after +1.8% in Q1. Building approvals for July are also out and projected to fall another 0.5% m/m after -7.7%. July housing finance is published on Friday and expected to be flat after falling 1% m/m. Total private sector credit is due Thursday and is forecast to rise 0.3% m/m in July following 0.2%. CoreLogic August house prices are on Friday and they have been rising since March.
• Q2 private capex prints Thursday and is projected to rise 1% q/q after 2.4%.
• The final August Judo Bank manufacturing PMI is released Friday. The preliminary eased to 49.4 from 49.6 in July.