Before turning to the data agenda, one item of note: reports are circulating in Russian media of a potential Iran-US deal (rumors of a Russian media report on an Iran-US deal).

Back on the calendar, the main focus in Asia on 26 August 2026 is Australia's July monthly CPI, due for release at 11:30am Sydney time. Monthly CPI data used to rank well behind the quarterly figures in importance, but that is no longer the case. A separate preview of the release is available here: Preview - Australia's July CPI set to ease to 3.2-3.3pct as trimmed mean holds near 3.5pct. As flagged in that preview, expectations are for headline inflation to ease to 3.2-3.3 per cent with the trimmed mean holding near 3.5 per cent — readings that would sit above the top of the Reserve Bank of Australia's 2-3 per cent inflation target band, the yardstick against which the cash rate is set.

As background:

Australia's shift to a monthly Consumer Price Index as the nation's primary inflation measure marks the most significant change to the country's price statistics in decades, ending the quarterly release's century-long role as the headline benchmark for monetary policy.

The transition traces back to September 2022, when the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) introduced a monthly CPI indicator to give policymakers and markets an earlier read on inflation between quarterly releases. That early indicator drew on existing data collection methods, updating prices for roughly two thirds of the CPI basket each month using data the ABS was already gathering for the quarterly series. At the time, both the ABS and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) flagged that the quarterly CPI would likely remain the principal measure for the foreseeable future, given that large parts of the basket — particularly consumer durables and many administered prices — were only priced once a quarter.

That changed as the ABS invested in broader monthly price collection. From April 2024, the Bureau began gathering monthly data across a much wider range of goods and services, alongside new data sources such as supermarket scanner data and a substantially expanded rental dataset covering around 480,000 properties, compiled monthly rather than via quarterly agent surveys. These improvements allowed the ABS to build a genuinely comprehensive monthly series rather than the partial-coverage indicator that had existed since 2022.

The final quarterly CPI release as Australia's primary inflation measure came in October 2025, alongside the last publication of the interim monthly indicator. The complete Monthly CPI then launched on 26 November 2025, covering the October 2025 reference month, formally replacing the quarterly series as the benchmark for the Reserve Bank's inflation target. The RBA welcomed the change, noting that the new series would offer more timely and complete information on consumer prices, even if monthly readings prove more volatile than the smoother quarterly figures they replaced.

The move also brought Australia into line with international practice, aligning it with every other G20 economy in publishing inflation data monthly rather than quarterly. For traders and analysts, the transition means the CPI print — now scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of most months, alongside forecasts and market positioning — carries the weight previously reserved for the quarterly release, while the underlying trimmed mean measure remains the RBA's preferred gauge of inflation, constructed by trimming the largest price rises and falls from each month's price movements to filter out volatile items.