Plenty Of Headlines, Not Much Movement

The futures curve holds flatter, with contracts sticking to tight ranges, leaving YM -0.5 and XM +0.5 on the day.

• The Greater Melbourne area has re-introduced some COVID restrictions given the 5 cases discovered over the past 24 hours or so, with the cases being linked back to the South Australian hotel quarantine outbreak. The restrictions are not as draconian as a full-scale lockdown. The restrictions go into play this evening, remaining in place until at least 4 June.
• On the domestic front, the latest round of ABS payrolls data saw a modest downtick in the headline figures, with the ABS noting that "in early May, payroll jobs were 1.5% above pre-pandemic levels and 1.5% lower than the end of March 2021." No real surprises there given the downtick in the headline reading in April's labour market report. The ABS noted that "the end of JobKeeper, seasonality in the labour market around Easter and short-term restrictions in some states may influence payroll job levels in the weeks between the end of March and 8 May 2021," once again providing no surprises.
• Elsewhere, the preliminary round of trade data pointed to stable Australian exports in the month of April, although imports fell by the best part of A$2.0bn, per the release.
• The pricing of A$500mn of SAFA '32 paper had no impact on the space.