Clearly the hottest topic this week is whether or not the Reserve Bank will raise the official cash rate at 2pm Wednesday (28th February). The guys give their takes on this issue, and ultimately, even if the OCR isn’t increased this week, a further rise down the track remains a possibility. Inflation isn’t dead yet!
Meanwhile, the discussion of recent data is focused on our latest NZ Housing Chart Pack, which highlighted a very slow start to the year for property sales activity, and the NZ Activity Index for January – which suggested that the economy is ‘ticking over’; good for jobs, but might underpin some inflation and interest rate pressure.
Also upcoming this week in terms of data: mortgage lending for January, filled jobs, ANZ business and consumer confidence, and new dwelling consents. Generally, the tone of these figures should be slightly positive, although the slide in dwelling consents is obviously a bit more concerning.
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