Aussie leading index bogged

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Westpac with the note.


  • Leading Index growth rate nudges back up to –0.13%.
  • Lower commodity prices partially offset by stabilising hours worked.
  • Economic activity improving but to remain below trend in to early 2025.

Westpac’s growth forecasts are broadly consistent with the Leading Index signals. GDP growth is expected to come in at an annualised pace of just 0.8% over the first half of 2024, a result that was foreshadowed by the weak Index reads in 2023. Growth is forecast to lift a little through the second half of 2024 and into early 2025 but remain lacklustre overall at a 2.2% annual pace (about flat in per capita terms).

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.