Australia’s Accelerating Core Inflation Cools Rate Cut Bets

Australia’s core consumer prices accelerated last quarter, easing pressure on the central bank to reduce interest rates and sending the local currency higher.

The trimmed mean gauge of core prices rose 0.7 percent from the previous quarter, when it climbed a revised 0.3 percent, the Bureau of Statistics said in Sydney today. That was more than the median forecast of 23 economists for a 0.5 percent gain.