There’s nothing from the October credit figures to force the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates today.
Only housing, especially owner-occupied dwellings, is showing any growth or demand for credit; apart from that there’s no action anywhere in business lending, though perhaps an upturn in margin lending for shares with a rise in personal lending.
Business lending remains very subdued, despite the re-emerging resources boom.
But the RBA looks at more than just the growth in credit, especially business lending which is still being influenced by the billions of dollars raised by companies in the first 9 months of the year.
That has helped depress business lending.
17 of 18 economists surveyed by Reuters late last week said they expected the central bank to lift rates by 0.25% to 3.75% at the board meeting today.
Inflation figures yesterday from the TD securities/Melbourne Institute showed a rise of 0.3% from October to November, and an annual rate of 2.1%.
Despite some attempts to suggest there’s rampant inflation developing, that reading won’t force the RBA’s hand on its own.
But credit figures from the RBA today showed a still slow economy with no growth in October from September when total credit eased 0.1%. Over the year to October, total credit was up 1.1%, slowing from the 1.7% in the year to September and 9.7% annual growth rate in the year to October 2008.
Housing credit rose 0.7% in October, after a similar rise in September to be up 8% for the year to October," the RBA said in its release.
Owner occupied housing rose 0.8% for a second month, and was up 10% for the 12 months to October, the highest annual rate since the 10.1% in the year to July 2008.
Investor housing credit rose 0.5% in October, to be up 3.4% for the year. That was the highest annual rise since the 12 months ending may this year.
"Over the year to October, housing credit rose by 8.0%. Housing credit rose over October due to growth in lending to both owner-occupiers and investors," the RBA said.
Other personal credit rose by 0.6% in October, following a rise of 0.2% in September.
The monthly rise for October was the highest since December 2007, when the financial crunch intensified as shares fell and the likes of Centro Properties and Centro Retail Estate Trust collapsed in price terms, starting the slump in the local market that intensified in the early months of 2008.
Over the year to October, other personal credit fell by 3.6%, the slowest rate of fall for a year.
Business credit declined by 1.3% in October 2009, following a similar sized fall in September.
Over the year to October business credit dropped 6.8%, the biggest annual fall for years.
But the drop is slightly misleading because during the year to October, hundreds of major companies, including our big banks, have raised around $100 billion from sharemarkets in fresh capital, as well as restructuring debts.
Those debt revamps led to many companies cutting debt levels in their new packages or curtailing credit lines (much of it at the insistence of the banks).
That, plus the continuing downturn in demand for many goods, saw private capital spending fall surprisingly in the September quarter by around 3%.
But projected spending for the full year rose 5.9% from the estimate in the June quarter figures, pointing to a possible upturn in business lending in 2010.
Meanwhile the business indicators for the September quarter showed a seasonally adjusted fall in company profits of 2.1% in current prices, and a rise in sales by manufacturers and wholesalers and a rise in business inventories of 0.8% in seasonally adjusted terms (on a chain volume basis).
Economists had been looking for a fall of 1% in business inventories in the quarter.
The fall in gross operating profits was the 4th quarter in a row they have fallen, a real indication of the impact of the economic slowdown here and offshore.
The fall in the June quarter was revised to a 7% fall from the 7.8% originally reported.
And the Housing Industry Association reported a fall in new homes sales in October of 6%, on top of the 4.3% fall in September, as first home buyer action eased.
And RP Data-Riskmark figures showed home prices jumped 1.4% in October, to be up 10% for the year to date. House prices were up 1.5%, while apartments rose 1.1% in the month.
