Australia's Week in Charts: Good Riddance to a Miserable Quarter
- First quarterly share drop for 2017; bonds rose over period
- Aussie is second-worst G-10 currency over the three months
Investors in Australian assets may be happy to see the end of a quarter that has been far from kind to many as the local economy strives hard to resist falling into recession, something it hasn’t experienced for 2 1/2 decades.
Aussie shares are dishing out some of the worst returns in the developed world this quarter as banks, hammered by government levies and a credit rating downgrade, decline along with energy shares. Citigroup Inc. and the quants at Morgan Stanley led a chorus of bears recommending to avoid most stocks Down Under. The nation’s dollar struggled with the second weakest performance among major currencies as political gridlock and signs of limp consumer spending overshadowed a slew of positive data surprises for the economy, including the best jobs growth since 2004.