Economists look to RBA minutes for clue on future rates
Attention will turn to the Reserve Bank of Australia with the minutes from its last board meeting due as well as speeches by senior officials.
The central bank’s opinion of Thursday’s job figures will be of particular interest, with the October numbers a mixed bag.
While job creation underwhelmed, it was the first weaker figure after a long run of surprisingly strong employment growth.
That lower number was accompanied by a step down in the participation rate – the percentage of people either employed or on the job hunt – which kept the unemployment rate steady at 4.1 per cent, for the third month in a row.
The undercurrent of labour market resilience was enough to prompt National Australia Bank to push back its prediction for interest rate cuts from February to May.
The bank’s economists said there was little urgency for the RBA to pull the trigger on easing while the unemployment rate was so low and progress on inflation so gradual.
The first RBA communications will come on Monday from assistant governor Christopher Kent, who is due to deliver the Sir Leslie Melville Lecture in Canberra.
On Tuesday, the minutes from the last meeting will be released.
On Thursday, RBA governor Michele Bullock will deliver a speech to the Women in Payments Conference in Sydney.
The monthly employee earnings indicator and gross state product numbers are the main releases of interest from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, both due on Wednesday.
Local investors will digest losses on Wall Street as the US markets reacted to cabinet picks by president-elect Donald Trump.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday fell 305.87 points, or 0.70 per cent, to 43,444.99, the S&P 500 lost 78.55 points, or 1.32 per cent, to 5,870.62 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 427.53 points, or 2.24 per cent, to 18,680.12.
Australian futures fell 26 points, or 0.31 per cent, to 8296.
The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index finished Friday at the highs of the day, rising 61.2 points, or 0.74 per cent, to 8,285.2, while the broader All Ordinaries gained 59.1 points, or 0.7 per cent, to 8,539.0.
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