Australian preliminary December PMI: Manufacturing 50.4 (prior 51.3), services 46.9 (47.6) | Forexlive

Flash Australian PMIs for December 2022 from S&P Global /Markit

manufacturing 50.4

• prior 51.3

services 469.9

• prior 47.6

composite 47.3

• prior 48.0

more to come

You may be tempted to view this poor data as a case for a halt to Reserve Bank of Australia rate hikes. I urge care with this conclusion. Inflation in Australia is way, way above the 2 to 3% target band which means the RBA still has a job to do bring the CPI down.

Yesterday’s employment data was strong indeed, at least the RBA has had some success on this leg of their dual mandate:

The RBA next meet on February 7. I expect another 25bp rate hike then.

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The rate hike path from the RBA so far: