Australian interest rates are set by the Reserve Bank of Australia, an independent body established in 1959. It is guided by an inflation targeting regime that seeks price stability in the 2-3% consumer price index band. The RBA originally also governed prudential policy but following several large scandals and bankruptcies in the late 1990s that role was separated into a discrete entity titled the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.
The RBA is widely well-regarded despite a recent history of buried corruption allegations and a board of business rent seekers that, in more ethical nations, would not have their hands anywhere near monetary policy levers.
In 1990, Australian interest rates were set at 17.5%. But during the Great Moderation, interest rates consistently fell alongside inflation and oscillated in a band between 1.5% and 7.5%.
Owing to an endowment of resources that proved very attractive to China during the Global Financial Crisis, Australian interest rates did not fall to the lows experienced in other developed markets. Indeed, Australia was the first developed market to raise interest after the crisis though it has subsequently had to lower them again as the commodity boom subsided.
During the 2000s, Australian interest rates began to be influenced by external economic pressures much more than previously. This process was driven by the huge offshore borrowing of Australia’s big four banks in wholesale markets. As their offshore liabilities ballooned, the banks were increasingly exposed to the vicissitudes of far flung markets and investors. This reached a head in the global financial crisis of 2008 when banks faced much higher demands from offshore investors for better risk-adjusted returns, forcing them to break with the Australian cash rate in setting local interest rates.
Ever since, Australian bank have regularly adjusted lending and deposit interest rates unilaterally and independently around the cash rate set by the RBA. These interest rates moves were a constant source of political friction as politicians sought to protect the Australian property bubble.
In 2015, Australian interest rate policy was forced to return to a defacto shared responsibility arrangement between the RBA and APRA. With the lowest interest rates in fifty years, the Australian property bubble inflated to new dimensions even as a global yield trade drove up the value of the Australian dollar, threatening economic growth. Eventually the solution found was to apply macroprudential policy to some mortgage lending so that interest rates could be lowered to take pressure off the currency.
MacroBusiness was the most accurate forecaster on Australia interest rates in the market from 2011 forward. It predicted both the turn in rates downwards in 2011 and has had the most dovish outlook ever since. It also lead the debate around, and implementation of, macroprudential tools in 2014. MacroBusiness covers all apposite data and wider analysis of these issues daily.
Via BofAML: Three threats to bonds Typically, when stocks decline, we see investors rushing to buy US Treasury bonds and other safe assets. This tendency of bonds to rally when stocks drop – the negative correlation between bonds & equities – is the basis for a conventional allocation of 60% to stocks and 40% to
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: The “quant quake” is happening again. Overnight, and indeed, over the past week, we have seen a very sharp rotation into value factors and out of momentum factors. This follows on from the sharp rotation we saw from late August to early September. To be sure, there
UBS was dovish. Damien Boey at Credit Suisse is hawkish: Ahead of next week’s much anticipated CPI release, we thought it would be interesting to see what the RBA’s core inflation models are saying right now. As background, the RBA models core inflation using the following variables: The size of the output gap. Unit labour
Via Bill Evans: The employment report for September printed a modest fall in the unemployment rate from 5.26% to 5.20%. Further, the underemployment rate fell from 8.53% to 8.35%. That will be sufficient to avert another rate cut from the RBA in November. Westpac has consistently argued that a cut in November was unlikely and
MB often works with international hedge funds on the Aussie economy. I recall the reaction of one from the US when he discovered that, unlike US fixed rate mortgages, Australian mortgages are all floating rate. He declared immediately: “Households must all pray for the next recession!” Why? Because that meant cheaper repayments for the overwhelming
So say the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: RBA Deputy Governor Debelle has just delivered a “glass half-empty” speech about the housing construction cycle. Key points were as follows: 2020 shapes up as being the low year for residential construction, but the Bank can see through the trough to the other side. Long lead
Via RBA foghorn, Terry Mccrann: It will leave its official interest rate unchanged at its regular and decidedly idiosyncratic Cup Day meeting. Leaving the rate unchanged was already the most likely outcome of the meeting before Thursday’s monthly jobs data; the continuing good news on jobs made it a slam dunk. …The next rate cut,
From Washington today comes Phil Lowe: “I don’t think it’s the right assumption to make that we’re going to have a lot more work to do to get inflation back to target and growth back to trend,” Dr Lowe told a forum at the IMF in Washington on Thursday (Friday AEDT). It’s possible, but I
Yeh, they’re onto it at last. Deputy Governor Guy Debelle today: The housing market has a pervasive impact on the Australian economy. It is the popular topic of any number of conversations around barbeques and dinner tables. It generates reams of newspaper stories and reality TV shows. You could be forgiven for thinking that the
Via Bill Evans at Westpac: There are two very important aspects to the minutes of the October meeting of the Reserve Bank Board. The first one relates to the conclusion to the minutes, “the Board would continue to monitor developments, including in the labour market, and was prepared to ease monetary policy further, if needed…” This language
They’re risky, have falling earnings, and are very highly valued at 15x forward. Yet Aussie banks are still bid. Why? A couple of Jonathon Mott charts from UBS tell the tale. It’s called the “dash for trash”: Divy cuts anyone?
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Minutes from the RBA’s early October meeting were dovish. The Bank highlighted: Its easing bias. That rising house prices are not a constraint on policy easing right now. The low(er) exchange rate as an especially important channel for rate cuts to be transmitted to the broader economy.
Post trade non-deal, Aussie bonds have sold off with the move in the US especially violent, though Australia has followed: The Aussie curve has steepened: And, giving us read of just how locally based Aussie weakness is, spreads to the US have widened: So, is it BTFB? Westpac thinks so: Its an important week for
The happy pills have soured at Martin Place: International Economic Conditions Members commenced their discussion of global economic conditions by noting that heightened policy uncertainty was affecting international trade and business investment. This had continued to be apparent in a range of indicators, including new export orders and investment intentions. Conditions in the manufacturing sector
Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Our proprietary measure of the Australian credit impulse has picked up to 5.6% annualized in August, from 4.9% in July, and 4.6% in June. Importantly, the credit impulse is well off the lows we saw at the end of 2018. Indeed, the impulse is running at its
Via Ross Gittins today: It’s amazing so many people are so sure they can see where the Reserve Bank is headed. Once interest rates are down to zero it will be on to QE – “quantitative easing” – and negative interest rates, they assure us. Don’t you believe it. …People assume the Reserve is hot
It’s never enough bubble for Joshy Recessionberg: The big four banks will be officially investigated for their repeated failures to pass on the full extent of central bank rate cuts to consumers under a government-launched probe into home-loan gouging. Josh Frydenberg has directed the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to investigate the pricing of residential
There have been times when Chris Joye has made good sense. As well as times when he becomes property bubble obsessed. Sadly we’re back to the latter as he pushes Frydenberg’s mad house price bubble plan today: There is considerable value in the RBA demonstrating that QE means it has ample monetary policy ammunition left.
Via the excellent George Theranou at UBS: Based on our proprietary survey, our Q3 headline CPI forecast is unrevised at 0.4% q/q, slowing from Q2’s bounce to 0.6% (driven by petrol). This is partly due to retracement of fuel (-2.3%, -0.07%pts); while the UBS Evidence Lab Grocery Tracker has food up 0.7%. The y/y should
Via the AFR: Shayne Elliott, the chief executive of one of the country’s biggest banks, has called on federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to convene a summit to discuss the broader economic implications of zero per cent interest rates and quantitative easing. Mr Elliott, who is the CEO of ANZ Banking Group and chairman of the
First up, monetary curmudgeon and former RBA boffin, Stephen Grenville: So why would it be a bad idea for the Reserve Bank to undertake QE? To start with, it is unlikely to have much beneficial effect. America’s QE1, at the height of the 2008 financial crisis, was very effective because the Fed bought mortgage securities
From a new report by The BIS’s Committee on the Global Financial System which Phil Lowe chairs: Executive summary Central banks expanded their balance sheets on an unprecedented scale in response to the global financial crisis (GFC) and its aftermath. To address financial market dislocations and the limitations of interest rate policy as rates approached
It’s bid-o-rama for the bond rocket again today with yields at record lows across the curve: There has been virtually no curve steepening to speak of with inversion now out past the seven year: The spread to US has bottomed, I reckon, though I can’t see any great compression ahead: More boom to come unless
Via Moody’s: Next Recession May Lower 10-year Treasury Yield to Range of 0.5% to 1% Despite today’s ultra-low yields, Treasury bonds may still pay off handsomely once recession strikes. Accordingly, Treasury bond yields are likely to set new multi-decade and possibly new record lows within the next five years. Any claim that the U.S. Treasury
Via Bill Evans: As expected the RBA Board lowered the cash rate by 25 basis points at its October meeting to 0.75%. Back in July we identified October and February as the likely dates for the next moves. At that time only 3 forecasters out of 24 in the surveys were forecasting an October move
Apology withdrawn, Wayno, via Banking Day: Under the new structure, each of APRA’s six operating divisions will be led by an executive director, as announced yesterday by APRA chair Wayne Byres. Therese McCarthy Hockey, a 20-year career treasury professional, mostly at Deutsche Bank’s Australian and UK operations, has been appointed as executive director, banking. She
So says The Australian: Small business lending rates have barely fallen and those for credit cards have increased in the wake of three cuts in the official interest rate by the Reserve Bank to help spur economic growth. As the big four banks endure a political backlash for not fully passing on the RBA’s latest
Via The Australian comes the Gottiboff nightmare: In Sydney, the wealth management arm of global investment bank Citi reports a 50 per cent lift in “funds flow” out of Hong Kong and into Australia. Anthony Si, an investment specialist at Citi says, “high net worth clients view Australia as a safe haven during political unrest
Aussie bonds are bid once more with a range of record low yields today, mostly at the short end and in the belly of the curve: The short end has begun pricing another rate cut and the curve is still inverted out the six year. The long end has also rallied but there has been
Bring on the QE. We needed a low dollar policy in 2011 but we need it even more today. Yet, just as the RBA has finally turned sane, the Australian economic pet shop has gone mad. Leading the stupidity is the reliably useless AFR editorial: Keynesian economics was fond of motor metaphors. All that was
