Is the Australian economy weakening?

Tighter monetary policy is weighing on several parts of the Australian economy, but commodities is providing some respite. Alex Rankine reports.

Australia
Sydney’s house prices are suffering their sharpest decline in 40 years
(Image credit: © Alamy)

“So much for the soft landing... It’s now a painful thud,” says Elizabeth Knight in The Sydney Morning Herald. Australian house prices fell by 1.3% in July, says CoreLogic. In Sydney they tumbled 2.2% for the month and are down 5.2% from their January apex: the local market is “plummeting” at its “fastest pace in 40 years”.

The cause is rising interest rates. Having started tightening monetary policy “too late”, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the central bank, is playing “catchup” at “warp speed”.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.