“Underlying inflation, which is more closely watched by the Reserve Bank and is a combination of the mean and weighted median measures, rose by 0.9 per cent in the fourth-quarter and by 2.6 per cent year-on-year,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported, citing the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
A constrained arsenal for RBA could mean a near-term bump for the Aussie, but likely the opposite for Australian stocks. As it is, the market has its detractors.
“We have downgraded our view of Australia to underweight from neutral. Australian valuations look expensive relative to other developed market valuations, considering that the country’s growth outlook is weakening thanks to fading mining investment, rising unemployment rates and sluggish wage growth,” BlackRock Chief Investment Strategist Russ Koesterich in research released earlier this month.
iShares MSCI Australia ETF
ETF Trends editorial team contributed to this post.