Sales at Australian businesses have improved, as a gauge of transactions fell the least in four months.
The Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator fell 0.1 per cent in August, improving from a 0.3 per cent fall in July and a 0.5 per cent drop in June.
It was a result Craig James, the report?s author and chief economist of the bank?s sharebroking arm, Commsec, described as ?encouraging?.
The seasonally adjusted data, on which the smoothed trend series is based, also provided some encouragement in the form of a rise of 0.6 per cent in August, the biggest rise in six months.
But it followed a fall of 0.7 per cent, which was the steepest drop for nine months.
So business sales are not out of the woods just yet, not by a long shot.
Mr James said businesses were unlikely to get too far ahead of themselves, despite the encouraging signs.
Seven of 20 monitored industry sectors posted trend falls in August, compared with eight in July and nine in June.
We are seeing more stability in the market in terms of the outlook for interest rates which is helpful,??said Matt Comyn, executive general manager of local business banking at Commonwealth Bank. ??However we are still living in volatile times and there continue to be a range of other factors preying on the consumer?s mind.?
The weakest was contracted services, which includes building trades, which fell by 0.8 per cent in trend terms in August, the biggest drop for a year and a half.
The strongest was amusement and entertainment, which includes movie theatres and recorded a trend rise of 0.8 per cent in the month.
Three states posted trend falls in business sales in August ? South Australia, Queensland and, despite the mining boom, Western Australia, where sales are falling at a rate of 0.5 per cent for month, adding weight to recent data suggesting WA is a patchwork state within the patchwork economy.
The BSI is based on the value of credit and debit card transactions processed through Commonwealth Bank merchant facilities and provides a broader measure of business sales than the monthly retail trade survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
AAP with Chris Zappone, BusinessDay
Article source: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/business-sales-downtrend-slows-20110920-1kirg.html
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Source: http://www.experts-bto.com/2011/09/20/business-sales-downtrend-slows/
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