Australian interest rates

Who can forget this absolute public policy shocker by the RBA: Ready for round eight?

Via the excellent Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: We have updated our proprietary wage inflation tracker for the latest partial indicators – and the results suggest that we should look forward to 2% annualized wage inflation in the coming quarters – well short of the RBA’s desired 2.5% annualized.

Via Bill Evans at Westpac: The minutes of the February Reserve Bank Board meeting do not provide much further information than we have seen from other communication from the Reserve Bank in recent weeks including the Governor’s speech to the National Press Club; the Statement on Monetary Policy; and the Parliamentary testimony.

Perhaps freshly off the blower with Highrise Harry, Gottiboff explores some COVID-19 scenarios today.

From the Loon: International Economic Conditions Members commenced their discussion of the global economy by noting the International Monetary Fund’s forecast for global growth to pick up in 2020 and 2021.

Scotty from Marketing is having us on again, as he can in Australia’s memory-free corporate propaganda soup (that is, the media): Scott Morrison has accused General Motors of allowing the iconic Holden brand to “wither and die” after demanding billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to remain in Australia.

Perhaps it’s time to bet on inflation, via Domain: Interest rates could remain low for “decades”, the Reserve Bank governor has signalled while warning Australians may be starting on a fresh binge of mortgage debt that could expose one of the nation’s biggest economic vulnerabilities.

Several weeks ago I wrote: The formulation of the gathering catastrophe is simple.

Via Westpac: The Reserve Bank has released its quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy (SMP).

What’s the need when everything is always all good, via Domain: Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe says the economic risk of the coronavirus is greater than SARS, as the infection rate surges and countries shut their borders.

Is the RBA or APRA responsible for house prices? Yesterday we got the following from Phil Lowe as the stall speed Aussie economy endures both endogenous and exogenous shocks: Our central forecast is for the Australian economy to expand by 2¾ per cent over 2020 and 3 per cent the following year (Graph 5).

Via Phil Lowe, Governnor of the RBA just now: The Year Ahead Thank you for inviting me back to address the National Press Club.

Via the McCrann RBA sockpuppet today: The Reserve Bank left its official interest rate unchanged, as I told you it would a week ago.

Some might say stupid.

From the Lunatic just now comes no surprise, really: At its meeting today, the Board decided to leave the cash rate unchanged at 0.75 per cent.

First, the update today: And charting the current daily growth rate of new cases gives us this parabolic curve: By the time of the March meeting there will be roughly 300k total cases.

The McCrann RBA sockpuppet has nothing for us today but more bizarre virus sugarcoating: Once it is contained, as it will be, here, there and everywhere, it is back to 2020 business as usual.

Via FTAlphaville: The Federal Reserve’s chair Jay Powell has been at pains to point out recent bloating of the bank’s balance sheet does not constitute fresh quantitative easing.

Via the UBS team: While it’s too early to know the full potential impact of coronavirus 2019-nCoV, it is clearly another negative for the economy, on top of the catastrophic bushfires.

So says the McCrann RBA sock puppet: The Reserve Bank has finally got what it wished for – inflation is back in the (2-3 per cent) zone.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the December quarter 0f 2019, which registered plummeting headline and underlying inflation on weakening domestic demand.