New Zealand ANZ Business Confidence rose from -47.8 to -36.7 in September. Own Activity Outlook rose from -4.0 to -1.8. investment intentions rose from -2.0 to 1.8. Employment intentions rose from 3.4 to 5.9. Pricing intentions rose from 68.0 to 70.1. Cost expectations dropped from 90.9 to 89.8. inflation expectations eased from 6.13 % to 5.98%.
ANZ said: “It’s fair to say that demand has not yet rolled over as feared as the Reserve Bank has raised interest rates. But insofar as the RBNZ can just keep on going until they see the cooling in demand they need to tame inflation, that’s likely to be a temporary reprieve, if not an outright double-edged sword for firms that have considerable debt.”
“Inflation pressures are easing, but painfully slowly. It’s not enough for the RBNZ to see inflation pressures top out and ever so gradually fall. They will be concerned about the chance that wage and price-setting behaviour will change in structural ways that make bringing inflation down more difficult. We expect that the RBNZ will need to deliver a policy rate closer to 5% than 4% to get on top of inflation pressures.”
