Australia’s Accelerating Core Inflation Cools Rate Cut Bets

Australia’s core consumer prices accelerated last quarter, easing pressure on the central bank to reduce interest rates and sending the local currency higher.

The trimmed mean gauge of core prices rose 0.7 percent from the previous quarter, when it climbed a revised 0.3 percent, the Bureau of Statistics said in Sydney today. That was more than the median forecast of 23 economists for a 0.5 percent gain.

Australia’s price growth is a developed-world rarity as deflation threatens some advanced nations. While policy makers from Tokyo to Frankfurt are undertaking quantitative easing to reflate their economies, the Reserve Bank of Australia is trying to steer a transition to extend more than 23 years of growth. Traders pared bets that central bank Governor Glenn Stevens will reduce the record-low 2.5 percent benchmark next week following the data.

Bloomberg

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