Category Archives: AUD

Q1’19 CPI makes strong case for 7 May RBA cut

Posted on April 24, 2019 by

The slow pace of inflation in Q1 makes a very strong case for a 25 bps reduction of the RBA’s policy rate on 7 May, to 1.25%. The key trimmed mean inflation measure increased 28bps to be 1.6% higher over … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, CPI, economics, monetary policy, RBA, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Q1’19 CPI, the RBA and May

Posted on April 24, 2019 by

The case for the RBA to cut their cash rate at their 7 May meeting has been beaten up by the RBA’s own views on the GDP data, but I still think that the data makes a decent case for … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, CPI, economics, monetary policy, RBA | Tagged | 4 Comments

IMF downgrades, RBA to follow

Posted on April 9, 2019 by

The IMF today downgraded global growth 20bps to 3.3%yoy (lowest since GFC), and said that the risks are skewed to the downside. Among Australia’s key trading partners, Chinese growth was bumped up 10bps to 6.3%yoy; Japanese growth -10bps to 1%yyo; … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, monetary policy, RBA | 6 Comments

What’s the State of the Economy?

Posted on April 8, 2019 by

The RBA made a subtle change to their concluding paragraph of their April post-meeting statement last week. Given that they had used the same words for the prior thirteen statements, and that the change occurred alongside downgrades to domestic and … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, monetary policy, RBA | 1 Comment

RBA sets up for May

Posted on April 2, 2019 by

The RBA today set up for a rate cut on 7 May. After thirteen months in a row where they cut and paste the following words: the Board judged that holding the stance of monetary policy unchanged at this meeting … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, monetary policy, RBA | 4 Comments

The case for an April easing bias

Posted on April 1, 2019 by

The RBA board will discuss the disappointing Q4’18 GDP data for the first time at their 2 April board meeting. The size of the downgrade is so large, and the domestic and global data for Q1’19 has been so weak, … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, monetary policy, RBA | Leave a comment

Underwater mortgages

Posted on March 29, 2019 by

The fact that Australian house prices are now back to 2016 levels (or below in some areas) means that there is a rising number of property transactions where the purchase price is now above the current valuation (or more importantly, … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, Housing | 5 Comments

The right way to think about Job Vacancies

Posted on March 28, 2019 by

My read of recent RBA communication, particularly RBA Ellis’s speech on the household sector earlier this week, is that the Bank is worried about a consumption slowdown that bleeds into the rest of the economy. It is therefore through that … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, RBA | 5 Comments

The RBA’s Consumption trigger

Posted on March 26, 2019 by

RBA Assistant Gov (Economic) Luci Ellis this morning gave a very careful speech on the household sector. In particular, it goes into some detail about why household income in the national accounts has looked so weak despite a firm labour … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, Labour Market, RBA | 8 Comments

The RBA just gave notice

Posted on March 19, 2019 by

The minutes to the RBA’s March board meeting seem designed to put the market on notice for a rate cut — at any time. The final paragraph repeated that they would “continue to assess the outlook carefully”, but they added … Continue reading →

Posted in AUD, economics, RBA | 6 Comments