July’s industrial production rose 6.4% according to official figures. That was well below both the 7.1% gain expected and June’s 7.6% rise. Retail sales also missed, but only just. They rose by an annualized 10.4%, when investors had hoped to see a 10.8% rise after June’s 11%. It’s tempting to suggest that those forecast misses will come to matter less than the clear deceleration seen for both series.
The Australian Dollar often finds itself in the position of investors’ favourite liquid China proxy thanks to its home nation’s vast commodity-export links with the world’s second-largest economy. It didn’t very obviously fulfil this role in the wake of the data, although it did slip back very modestly in the direction of 0.7900