MacroBusiness
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Westpac with the note:
The growth rate in the Leading Index peaked at 5% back in November last year shortly after 22 consecutive negative prints and a particularly large -6% during last year’s national COVID lock-down. It has since fallen back to 1.34%, still comfortably above zero and therefore signalling the outlook for above trend growth.
On July 20 Westpac revised its near-term growth forecasts to take account of the lock-downs in both NSW and Victoria. We now expect that the NSW economy will contract by 3.1% in the September quarter and the Victorian economy will contract by 0.1%.
That assumes the NSW lockdown will last a total of eight weeks and the Victorian lockdown three weeks. Contractions in the two biggest states will mean that the national economy is likely to contract by 0.7% in the September quarter.
Masks will not be mandated at Crestview Monday, July 19, 2021 8:08 PM Crestview Superintendent Kathy Mollenkopf addresses the Board during the regular July meeting held Monday. (DHI Media/Sherry Missler)
By Sherry Missler
smissler@timesbulletin.com
CONVOY Crestview Superintendent Kathy Mollenkopf
provided the Board with updates on several matters during the regular
July meeting held Monday evening. One issue she touched upon concerned
staff for the upcoming school year. She told the Board hiring was nearly
complete but requested that Board members set aside time for a special
Board meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 3 beginning at 5 p.m. solely to approve
the new hires. We really can t wait until the August Board meeting
MacroBusiness
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By Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA
Key Points:
The July Board Minutes note that the decision to taper bond purchases from mid‑September was underpinned by the assessment that, “economic outcomes had been materially better than earlier expected and the outlook had improved.”
The near term economic outlook has since deteriorated due to extended lockdowns in large parts of the country.
We now expect the RBA Board to reverse the decision to taper the bond buying program from mid‑September if Greater Sydney and/or Victoria are still in lockdown at the time of the August Board meeting (3 August).
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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia s central bank will likely reverse its decision to taper its bond buying programme if Sydney remains in a coronavirus lockdown when the board meets on Aug.3, economists at the country s top banks said on Tuesday.
Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced it will trim its bond purchases from September to A$4 ($2.93 billion) a week from the current A$5 billion, citing better-than-expected economic outcomes.
Since then, three of Australia s six states have plunged into a lockdown with the most populous city Sydney, the powerhouse of the country s A$2 trillion economy, facing its harshest restrictions since the pandemic began in 2020.