Australian interest rates

Bloody ABC.

Via The Australian: The Turnbull government has warned the big five banks not to lie to their customers if they pass on a new $6 billion levy, AAP reports.

I did warn you about NAB: National Australia Bank is slugging interest-only owner occupier and residential property investors up to 50 basis points, but has cut rates for some principal and interest buyers.

From Bloxo: Prices have fallen, but should we be worried?

If the CoreLogic leading mortgage index is to be trusted then it’s aaawn or, more to the point, off: This time last year, the index was at 135 and accelerating.

The RBA’s happy idiots have gotten their hands upon the Statement of Monetary Policy.

Treasurer Scott Morrison’s declaration that the great Australian adjustment is over has lasted for a full four days.

We’ll file this one under “no shit, Sherlock”.

From Bill Evans at Westpac: As expected, the Reserve Bank Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 1.5%.

Barely even noticed!

Melbourne Institute monthly inflation has broken out with a 0.5% surge for April, raising the year on year number to 2.6%: The trimmed mean is less impressive at 0.3% and 1.7%.

Cause they suck at forecasting!

Hello: Owner occupiers and investors signing up to interest-only fixed rate deals will be the worst hit with some hikes as high as 0.4 per cent.

Via The Australian: A recent uptick in unemployment isn’t a sign of emerging weakness in the economy, according to a policy setter at the Reserve Bank of Australia, in comments likely to strengthen the view that the bank’s next move will be to eventually raise rates.

Some weird old bullhawks return today: The dollar’s potential loss of its status as a high-yielding currency could cause the Aussie to plunge to US62¢, forcing the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates despite still-weak domestic growth, according to one of Asia’s most prominent currency strategists.

From Capital Economics: When taken together with the RBA’s valid concerns that cutting interest rates further would threaten financial stability, today’s data suggest that underlying inflation is now at a level that the RBA will be willing to tolerate.

The infantile “bondcano” just won’t go away: After a brief hiatus, the reflation trade is about to enter stage two, and Aussie investors should stay long this theme, Credit Suisse’s Hasan Tevfik says.

Via Australian Broker: A staggering 57% of mortgage holders could not handle a $100 increase in their loan repayments, according to new research by Finder.com.au.

This is going to hurt at the margin.

I’m losing track of how much tightening we’ve seen from the CBA in the past two months but there’s more today with fixed rates on interest-only loans rising by 25 basis points, specufestor loans up 25 basis points, and specufestor interest only up 25-50 basis points.

Another hopeful report today: For an inflation-targeting central bank, wages growth matters.

Man, this is some really hopeful shit: The outlook for wages growth 1.

From late 2011, MB warned the RBA and Treasury against its wrong-headed plan to catapult the Australian economy over the mining bust by blowing a new housing bubble.

From Bill Evans: The minutes of the Monetary Policy meeting of the Reserve Bank Board on April 4 contained some significant changes from the previous minutes for the March meeting.