Forex Flash: Australia Building Approvals losing momentum - NAB

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - Another weak batch of economic data hit the wires this evening, as Australia released its most recent Building Approvals figures which missed estimates.

According to analysts at NAB Global Markets, “Australian building approvals suffered a surprise fall in March, down 5.5% against expectations for a rise of 1.0% (NAB forecast +2.5%). After showing some decent growth in Q2 and Q3 last year, building approvals have now fallen in five of the past six months. Approvals rose 3.0% in February, but even that was due to a large gain in public sector housing.”

Furthermore they added,” It’s another weak sign for the construction sector, supporting the case for a nother rate cut by the RBA. Two of the key factors that gave the RBA confidence that the economy was responding to the earlier rate cuts were the gains in housing activity and retail sales. We still expect that the RBA will wait until June to see if the recent weakness in the housing data continues, but a very weak retail sales release on Monday could potentially sway the RBA to cut earlier when they meet on Tuesday.”