National Australia Bank (NAB) business survey for December 2015

Business conditions: 7

  • prior 10

Business Confidence 3

  • prior 5

Falls in both. A bit of a surprise, to me at least. You might say ... "But what about all this volatility! Surely that's caused these falls?". But, say I ... this was a survey for December, prior to the turmoil to open 2016.

ADDED: Mystery solved. The NAB survey is normally conducted at the end of the month. But this survey was conducted on January 15, so that helps to explain the declines. That makes much more sense, it was in the middle of the China volatility. Except for calling it the December survey, which doesn't make sense at all.

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Moving on, from the report:

Business conditions are well above average in fundamental (trend) terms, quite elevated levels

  • Positive business conditions in most industries suggests a relatively broad based recovery outside the mining sector (services leading the way)
  • "This outcome suggests there are no real signs (beyond normal monthly volatility) that there is a fundamental weakening in the non-mining recovery"

Business confidence has been surprisingly robust

  • encouragingly resilient

Comments from NAB chief economist Alan Oster on the data:

  • "Positive business conditions in most industries suggest a relatively broad-based recovery in the non-mining sector is underway with services leading the way
  • Although the deterioration in construction will be monitored closely
  • While recent big declines in oil and equity markets highlight potential risks to the global outlook, relatively positive business conditions appear to have, so far, acted to reassure business sentiment".

more to come

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The heads up I posted earlier today had a brief run down on the previous results from this survey

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Stil to come in Australia this week.