Aussie CPI reaffirms market forecasts, post 0.7 percent growth in Sept quarter
Australia's headline consumer price index (CPI) barely missed the market forecast of 0.8 percent in the September quarter as new data furnished by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed that the country's CPI went up by 0.7 percent in the quarter, en route to an annual rate of 2.8 percent.
The ABS said on Wednesday that the country's trimmed mean CPI moved up by 0.6 percent in the third quarter and chalked up an annual growth rate of 2.5 percent while its weighted median CPI grew by 0.5 percent in the same period for a yearly surge of 2.3 percent.
In a survey conducted by AAP, 15 economists had projected that Australia's headline CPI would grow by 0.8 percent, leading to an annual increase of 2.9 percent and almost reaffirming the median market forecast set by experts.
Also, many economists were anticipating that the trimmed mean and weighted mean CPIs, both underlying measures of inflation, were to soar by an average of 0.7 percent in the September quarter, to pack an annual growth movement of 2.0 percent.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) largely utilises the underlying measures to keep track on indicators of the country's inflation rate, which were being exclusively furnished by the ABS to the central bank.
Experts noted that the RBA's usage of the twin underlying measures was usually subjected to revisions in consideration of the normal seasonal adjustments being implemented on some of their components.
The headline CPI, however, is fixed basis for the central bank's policy rate decisions, which experts said plays a major role in holding off or pushing up the monthly cash rate.