Nobody else is going to say it so I had better. MB and Gerard Minack are the only economic forecasters in the market over the last three years to get the interest rate outlook right.
Nobody else saw rates continuing to fall. MB never wavered that the next move would be down. Gerard Minack was similar. Now everybody has fallen in behind us.
As far as I can recall only Bill Evans of Westpac never succumbed to the collective madness that the RBA was going to raise interest rates. Shane Oliver and the Kouk deserve a mention for being early movers towards easing. Goldman Sachs set an absolute new low in getting it all wrong with Bloxo close behind.
Sadly for Bill, despite him being the best of the formal bunch, with daylight a comfortable second, he lost his third (unwitting) bet with me in a row on the direction of rates.
Alas, this forecasting triumph does not give me any comfort. More a sickly feeling in the stomach because it means that, once again, the needed structural adjustment in the economy from household credit to tradables will be delayed as the corruption of APRA has hardly skipped a beat.
And so, it is with an insouciant joy that I announce the winner of this business cycle’s interest rate forecasting award.
The Golden Turd goes to…me.
