Copyright theage
The quarterly rise in inflation of 1.3 per cent in September was well above the 0.7 per cent reading that would have kept inflation on track to hit the Reserve Bank’s forecast for December. Bullock flagged during a question-and-answer session at the Australian Business Economists event in Sydney this week that a difference of 0.3 percentage points between the bank’s forecast and the actual figure for the three months to September would be “a reasonably material miss”. The numbers had an immediate impact on financial markets. The Australian dollar climbed almost half a cent against the US dollar, reaching US66¢ on expectations of higher interest rate settings, while the ASX200 shed 0.7 per cent in the 30 minutes after the release of the data. The biggest price rises in the September quarter were housing (up 2.5 per cent), recreation and culture (up 1.9 per cent) and transport (up 1.2 per cent).
