Australia: Weaker construction work done - TDS

Research Team at TDS, notes that the Australian construction work done, was weaker than the 2% drop the market was expecting, coming in at -3.7% /qtr (TD -3%).

Key Quotes

“The breakdown shows mining (engineering) to be the big drag, declining 9%/qtr, more than the 7% fall we anticipated. Driving the decline was the 5.7% slump in private building, but not offset enough by the 5.3% jump in government building.

We also had Skilled Vacancies for July released, and they dropped -0.6%/m, the largest monthly decline since May 2015.

NZ: The market got a slightly wider trade deficit for July at -$NZ433m on weaker exports at $NZ3.96b cf $NZ4.07b. Imports rose to seven-month high of $NZ4.4b. Not much in it as there was always going to be a deficit month due to seasonality.  Can't milk frozen cows in winter!”