Monday 15th July 2019

China reported disappointing import numbers at the close on Friday. It’s significant, says NAB’s Ray Attrill, because it shows that, as demand for Chinese goods falls, the demand for overseas sourced inputs to those products falls. That’s not a healthy outlook for the Australian economy, although we didn’t see any market reaction. Indeed, the Aussie dollar climbed over 70 US cents at end of the week, as the US dollar falls and equities rise on speculation over how deep the Fed will cut at the end of the month. Phil Dobbie asks whether a downturn in corporate earnings this week will dampen equity prices, or is the speculation on interest rates too intense to be side-tracked by anything else.