The Reserve Bank of Australia will meet on May 6 and 7. Almost unanimously (1 of the 37 economists surveyed expects an increase) plans to leave the key rate unchanged at 4.35%.
- The reading is expected at 2:30 p.m. Sydney time, which is 04:30 GMT and 00:30 US Eastern time.
- Governor Bullock will hold her press conference one hour later
A Reuters poll shows that economists expect just one interest rate cut this year. The previous survey tipped two, but it was the persistence of inflation data that prompted the change.
As part of its report, Reuters has some insightful comments from analysts.
BlackRock Australasia:
- “Services inflation remains a serious problem that needs to be addressed. And the most painless remedy for a central banker is to raise longer-term cash interest rates.”
“They were slow to start raising interest rates, they didn’t raise rates as high as other major central banks, so to expect them to start cutting prematurely was strange from our point of view. view. If they were to cut back and then have to backtrack shortly after, it would have destroyed their credibility.
Westpac
- “We expect them (the RBA) to remain on hold, but they will likely maintain and possibly intensify their rhetoric about the risk of a hike. I don’t think the (inflation) surprise that we saw in March was enough to tip the scales for them to go hiking, but we can’t rule it out completely.”
The four biggest local banks, ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac, plan no change from the RBA until a 25 basis point cut in November.
I saw this earlier this week at Rabobank, looking for hikes later this year:
cnbctv18-forexlive
