Australian interest rates

We have a market!

From Westpac this time: • Westpac’s forecast for the headline CPI is 0.9%qtr which lifts the annual pace to 1.5%yr from 1.0%yr. • September is traditionally a stronger quarter (mostly due to the annual price resetting for administrated prices) with the ABS seasonal factor worth 0.3ppts.

From Macquarie:  RBA Governor Philip Lowe’s first speech as Governor has reinforced themes around monetary policy we have been highlighting.

From Westpac: The minutes of the monetary policy meeting of the Reserve Bank Board for October, which mark the first meeting of the new Governor Lowe, provide significant insight into the Board’s current deliberations.

Weeo, weeoo, weeoo: What a funny little business the sudden interest in “tracker home loans” is – an apparent desire to have a home loan that immediately follows Reserve Bank cash rate movements just when there’s a very good chance the next RBA move will be up.

From Captain Phil today: I would like to thank Citi for the invitation to speak at this year’s Investment Conference.

Many things that occur in society defy rational or logical explanation.

From Janet Yellen Friday night: Extreme economic events have often challenged existing views of how the economy works and exposed shortcomings in the collective knowledge of economists.

Cross-posted from The Conversation: Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison recently suggested the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) avoid cutting interest rates below the current 1.5%.

By Leith van Onselen It is Groundhog Day at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The organisation has already been savaged by funding cuts and jobs losses under the prior two governments (both Labor and Liberal), thus hampering its ability to perform its functions.

From Deutsche: Our Q3-CPI forecast at 0.8%qoq/1.3%yoy for headline and 0.5%qoq/1.6%yoy for the average of the RBA core measures.

From Bloxo: Global commodity prices have risen by 26% since January 2016 and oil prices are at the highest level in over a year.

Aussie bonds are taking their cue from oil and central bank moves to steepen yield curves.

As I’ve said many times, it is only a matter of will, from Bloomberg: On the surface, the property markets in Singapore and Hong Kong have much in common.

From Westpac: As expected, the Reserve Bank Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 1.50%.

The RBA result for October is out and it’s no change, as expected.

From Macquarie:  The RBA board will meet on Tuesday and the market outlook for policy is shifting.

From the always wrong Shadow RBA: There is little economic news, not even OPEC’s decision to cut oil output, to justify a change in the current cash rate.

I thought he’d learned after calling this bottom four or fives already but no!

From Westpac: The Reserve Bank Board meets next week on October 4.

From Zero Hedge, Deutsche continues to track for the abyss: From Frances Coppola at Forbes: The proximate cause of the latest panic is the US Department of Justice’s proposed $14bn fine for mis-selling American MBS prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

At the end of 2014, when the then governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, declared his easing cycle at an end I wrote the following: Sure, that may be what he’d like.