The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Friday, August 31, 2012

Goldman Sachs revised up Q2 Aussie GDP growth to super-strong +1.0%

Interesting from GS:

Q2 GDP: We revise up our tracking estimate to +1.0% qoq. The key indicator in today’s data was the 1.2% qoq rise in equipment spending, which was slightly ahead of our expectations and together with a larger-than-expected fall in the equipment price deflator, adds around another 10bp of upside to our pre-release GDP tracking estimate of +0.8% qoq. In view of this, and the additional upside risk to that estimate which we flagged following yesterday's Q2 construction report, we have revised our GDP tracking estimate higher to +1.0% qoq.