Australian interest rates

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.

From Tim Lawless now: Housing is Australia’s largest asset class, worth an estimated $6.7 trillion, so it’s important to measure the performance of this very important asset class in an accurate and timely manner.

From Chris Joye today: In the mid 2000s the RBA was worried about the timeliness and accuracy of the quarterly “median price” indices.

From Westpac’s Bill Evans: I have written extensively about the need for the new Governor of the Reserve Bank to adjust his inflation target from 2–3% to 1–3% to reflect the reality of lower global inflation relative to the mid 1990’s, when the target was originally successfully adopted.

Barclays on the Fed: Although we had expected a interest rate hike at this meeting, the non-hike was very close call.

From Westpac: The minutes of the September monetary policy meeting of the Reserve Bank Board provided few surprises.

RBA minutes: Governor – Final Meeting Members noted that this was the final meeting for Glenn Stevens AC.

From Macquarie:  Our confidence in our policy outlook has increased following the announcement of a new Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy, which affirms the RBA’s commitment to inflation targeting.

From the AFR comes rent-seekers Hugh Giddy is Senior Portfolio Manager and Anton Tagliaferro Investment director at Investors Mutual Limited: In many of these poorer-performing economies overseas, central banks have seen fit to take far more extreme action than has been taken by the RBA to date.

From ADCM Review: As at the end of August, international bond issuance by Australian financial and non-financial corporate borrowers exceeded the equivalent of A$114 billion.

It’s an academic question but there are three points to make that underline a major developing problem for monetary authorities.

Domainfax has a piece today debating whether equities and bonds are a bubble: One of the big questions being tossed around global markets at the moment is if shares and bonds are overvalued.

From the RBA’s Christopher Kent today: Today I want to talk about some important developments shaping the Australian economy, focusing on the sharp fall in commodity prices over the past few years.

From Bloxo: Australia’s economy has done well, considering it has had to absorb a significant negative shock from the end of the mining boom.

It’s farewell to Captain Glenn today as he rides off into the sunset in a single-engine Cessna, via the AFR: Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens has conceded that he has “some discomfort’ about rising Sydney house prices, but argued that these concerns need to be weighed up against the need to stimulate economic activity.

The RBA and APRA better sort out what’s happening to the CoreLogic housing index quick smart because it is going nuts in Sydney and Melbourne: Yet APRA recently said: …some economists suggested APRA might need to step up its efforts to ensure banks are lending prudently.

New RBA Governor Phil Lowe makes a good start today in his first speech: Remarks to the Asian Development Bank – Institute of Global Finance International Conference I would like to welcome you all to Sydney to this important conference.

From Macquarie:  Was August a mistake? The RBA has delivered 50bp of rate cuts since May. However, recent trends in the economy point to GDP growth accelerating to its fastest pace in four years (see: Aussie Macro Moment – BoP review – GDP to crack 3.5%).

The RBA has held interest rates today.

From Domain yesterday: A four-bedroom beachfront house on Byron Bay’s picturesque Belongil Beach is on sale with an expected price of up to $5.4 million.

Melbourne Institute monthly inflation for August is out and manged to flop into the positive at 0.2%.