International bank HSBC has penned a note saying it’s concerned Australia’s weakening productivity, falling savings rate and consecutive interest rate hikes risk pushing the economy into recession later this year.
“Our take is the economy has been subjected to a number of negative shocks, the effect of which has mostly arrived in March, April and May, and which have sharply weakened sentiment and some timely activity indicators,” HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham said.
“These include the RBA’s three back-to-back rate hikes and the Middle East conflict shock.
“A third shock may have also arrived in the form of the budget – given it is expected to weaken housing prices and housing turnover and given the economic uncertainty that comes from substantially shifting tax arrangements.
“Our view, since March, has been that GDP is likely to contract in Q2 – we see the collection of indicators above as supporting that view,” Mr Bloxham said.
A technical recession is defined as two consecutive negative quarters of economic growth.
“The risk is rising that there may be two consecutive quarters of falling GDP,” Paul Bloxham added.