Corporate profits continued to decline in the March quarter, adding drag to the value of national output ahead of Wednesday's gross domestic product figures.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that gross operating profits declined 4.7 per cent in the first three months of the year, seasonally-adjusted, for a year-on-year decline of 8.4 per cent.
The figure was worse than expected, and the Australian dollar dipped slightly, to around US71.56¢.
However, the value of inventories, whose volatility can also blind-side GDP estimates, rose 0.4 per cent for the quarter, above expectations of zero.
Although piled-up inventories can reflect slow or weak sales, their accumulated value goes to the positive side of the national accounts ledger.
UBS noted this, and said a 1.2 per cent quarterly increase in sales would also be positive for one measure of GDP.
However, the bank also noted that it wasn't just mining-related profits that continued to slide, but non-mining industries were also weak, down 3.3 per cent for the year.
After a surprisingly robust 0.6 per cent expansion in the final quarter of 2015, output growth is expected to come in again at 0.6 per cent for the first three months of the year, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.
This, however, will reduce the year-on-year growth rate to 2.7 per cent from 3 per cent at the end of last year.
Economists expect net exports to have provided much of the growth, with greater volumes compensating for a slight fall in the terms of trade, which measures the value of exports against the cost of imports.
Soft spending
Economists agree the main drags on growth will come from soft consumer spending, weak business investment and a quarterly drop in public demand because of one-off defence procurement items in the 2015 final quarter.
Citi said on Monday details of the GDP report were "likely to disappoint".
"We forecast another quarter of weak domestic demand growth thanks to negative mining investment, soft income and company profits growth," the investment bank said.
Monday's corporate figures come as the Australian stock market nears 10-month highs, buoyed by investor appetite for returns in a low-yielding world.
The current one-year forward price-earnings ratio for the sharemarket is at 16.2 times, well above its long-term average of 14.5 times.
This has prompted some speculation that a correction is due.
