Australian interest rates

While the 1,400 fruitcakes at the Lunatic RBA and Corrupt APRA are busy deploying psychologists to bank boards to understand how to babysit psychopathy, the 300 focused souls at the RBNZ remain a beacon of sanity.

Via Vimal Gor at Pendal: Everything (yes, everything) has a price, and in most cases higher prices drive down demand.

Via the BIS overnight: The year in review It was perhaps too good to be true.

Why would they?

Via Bill Evans at Westpac: The RBA Board meets next week on July 2.

From Mr Joye: The bottom line is that with more cuts coming, and APRA yet to reduce its 7 per cent serviceability test, the housing party is just getting started.

Via the RBNZ today: The Official Cash Rate (OCR) remains at 1.5 percent.

From Westpac this time: • As mentioned in our front page essay, last week’s RBA Board Minutes did nothing to silence the increasing market focus on the potential for the RBA to venture into more unconditional forms of monetary policy, such as quantitative easing.

Via Bill Evans at Westpac: We have decided to bring forward the timing of the next RBA rate cut from August to July.

It’s been like a warm blanket settling over markets for the past few weeks as the Lunatic RBA finally began to talk down the AUD.

Via ANZ: The RBA seems to be in a hurry to get the cash rate lower.

We’ve already been through it.

Yesterday we saw regulatory capture out in the open at the AFR: Westpac has unleashed a fresh wave of property lending by relaxing serviceability conditions on low risk home loans, immediately increasing the borrowing capacity of aspiring home owners by as much as 8 per cent.

Via the AFR: Westpac has unleashed a fresh wave of property lending by relaxing serviceability conditions on low risk home loans, immediately increasing the borrowing capacity of aspiring home owners by as much as 8 per cent.

Via CBA: Lowe signals another cash rate cut is imminent Following Lowe’s speech today we are now expecting the RBA to cut the cash rate in July rather than August.

Only eight years late comes Phil Lowe: I would like to thank CEDA for the invitation to address this lunch.

On and on it goes, at all news highs again: And still there is no curve steepening.

It is the boom without cease.

Via the Lunatic just now: International Economic Conditions Members commenced their discussion by noting that the data on the global economy released since the previous meeting had been mixed.

The Lunatic RBA cookie cutter spawns another relentless bull in Jonathan Kearns, Head of Financial Stability Department: Thank you to the Property Council for asking me to speak at this Property Leaders’ Summit. I want to address an important issue for the property industry – the rising rate of housing loan arrears (Graph 1).

Via NAB’s Alan Oster: • We have changed our view on the cash rate, to include an extra cut in late 2019 – while heavily data dependent we have tentatively placed the cut in November.

Via Bill Evans at Westpac: Over the last two weeks, I have been visiting institutional investors, real money managers, and hedge funds in Europe and London.

There’s no downside to being a permabull when it comes to bonds.