According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's current account posted a $5.85 billion seasonally adjusted surplus for the June 2019 quarter. This was a turnaround of almost $7 billion from the March 2019 quarter deficit of $1.1 billion.
The ABS also said that in seasonally adjusted chain volume terms, the surplus on goods and services rose $2.75 billion which is expected to add 0.6% to growth in the June 2019 quarter in GDP terms. The GDP numbers are expected tomorrow.
Being able to report a current account surplus has been one of the key focus points of the Morrison Government, even it has been delivered with the help of high iron ore prices with a high level of export volume.
Economists, and Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) officials in-particular, have been urging the Federal Government to take some action to support the economy.
The RBA also decided to hold Australia's interest rate at 1% today after warning of economic concerns, whilst retail sales fell 0.1% in July. The budget is in a good place, but the economy is still a little shaky.
But, the increased tax offset changes may come just in time to give the economy a boost in the September 2019 quarter, as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is hoping. The recent quickfire interest rate cuts by the RBA could also help in the coming months.
Do today's figures mean it's time to buy shares of ASX companies like Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), Woolworths Group Ltd (ASX: WOW) and Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS)?
I'm not personally going to purely make an investment decision based on what's going on with the economy overall, but it can help all boats/shares rise over time if the economy continues to do fairly well.
Foolish takeaway
For me, the much bigger news this week has been that house prices have (at least for now) stopped falling in Sydney and Melbourne. This could be a much bigger boost for consumers and discretionary businesses.
