Producer price pressures plunge
Not a big surprise, given what's been reported by card trackers, but retail turnover fell -0.8 per cent in June, and remains lower than it was last year (in spite of high population growth).
Clothing and footwear retail fell -2.2 per cent, food retailing was down marginally, and department store turnover fell by a savage -5 per cent.
It's not looking great out there in retail land, with consumers suddenly snapping their wallets shut.
The retail volumes figures aren't out yet, but it looks like a significant contraction of around -0.5 per cent for the June quarter.
Australia might dodge a recession, with the Q1 national accounts showing a very narrow growth in GDP of 0.2 per cent.
But in per capita terms, of course, we already are in recession.
In another soft data release, producer prices increased only +0.5 per cent in Q2, the lowest increase since March 2021.
Source: ABS
Notably, as pointed out by the king of data James Foster, homebuilding inflationary pressures are subsiding fast, after some alarming increases over the past few years.
While the retail and homebuilder sectors will both be under some severe pressure, this is news which portends lower inflation ahead.
