Retail disappoints
Didn't get around to it during the week, so here's retail in 30 seconds.
There had been some expectation that tax cuts might partly flow through to retail turnover in August, but it didn't much happen.
Retail turnover missed expectations in increasing by +0.4 per cent to $27.55 billion, while the prior month's growth was revised up a notch to zero.
If you were trying very hard you could say this takes the annual growth up to +2.6 per cent, but the trend has been lower now since the second half of 2018.
To the extent that tax cuts were spent in the shops in August this was reflected in department stores (+1.1 per cent), and especially clothing and footwear (+1.8 per cent).
And at the state level, Queensland now leads the way, with turnover up by +5.1 per cent over the year.
Overall, there were some signs of tax cuts being spent on discretionary items, but not enough to lift total retail trade meaningfully.
