Next Thursday (New Zealand time) we'll get Q4 2022 GDP.
Due at 2145 GMT on Wednesday 15 March, which is 1645 US Eastern time
ANZ New Zealand expect the contractions will be partially due to the huge expansion in Q3, some 'payback':
- We’ve pencilled in a 0.3% q/q contraction for Q4 GDP, due next Thursday. That’s weaker than our previously published forecast of +0.3% q/q and the RBNZ’s February MPS forecast of +0.7%.
- At the risk of sounding like a broken record, given ongoing noise in the data, we’re not convinced a weak read in Q4 can be considered much more than payback from the whopper pace of growth in Q3 (+2.0% q/q). We didn’t take the full signal from Q3 GDP because the data are still normalising post-COVID. We (and the RBNZ) are likely to look through some of the weakness in Q4 (if the data print broadly as we expect).
- But the economy is slowing – just perhaps not at the pace quarterly GDP growth in Q4 may suggest.
