- Tuesday, 03 July 2018
- News
RBA left interest rates unchanged
The Reserve Bank of Australia left rates on hold as widely expected and emphasized the uncertain outlook. Inflation is below target, private investment is soft, and domestic demand is weak. There are well-known international sources of uncertainty too like trade, and the outlook for the Chinese economy. The low level of interest rates is continuing to support the Australian economy.
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- Monday, 25 June 2018
- News
Aussie under pressure as interest rates at record low, RBA wants to see wage rise
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s Official Cash rate is still at 1.50%, a record low and the longest unchanged interest rate in the country’s history. No changes are fully-priced into rate futures markets until the end of 2019. No wonder, perhaps then, that the poor old Aussie Dollar should be struggling. The problem for both Asia Pacific economies is, of course inflation; the lack of it, to be specific. While neither country is performing especially badly, particularly on the employment front, pricing power remains stubbornly absent. Japanese consumer price inflation got up to 1.5% in February of this year. That was a near three-year high and the sight of it raised hopes that the BoJ’s 2% target might be within reach.
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- Monday, 26 March 2018
- News
The ECB’s Weidmann says Expectations for mid-2019 rate hike is not realistic
The Bundesbank President repeated that the ECB’s policy normalization should start soon, adding again that expectations for a rate hike around the middle of next year are “not unrealistic”. No real surprise there, although there seems a slight delay in the road map towards a rate hike, after Praet recently seemed to hint that he is comfortable with market expectations for a move “next spring”. If mega-hawk Weidmann is aiming more for the middle of next year, there doesn’t seem to be too much of a hurry, even if the general road map for the phasing out of policy measures remains intact, despite trade war jitters and market turbulences.
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- Wednesday, 21 March 2018
- News
Federal Reserve Raises Interest Rates at First Meeting with Powell at Helm
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday, its first rate hike this year, in a decision that was widely anticipated by markets. The Federal Open Market Committee increased the overnight funds rate to a range of 1.5% to 1.75% in its first meeting with newly-installed Chairman Jerome Powell at the helm. Futures traders had seen an around 90% chance of a rate increase ahead of the meeting, according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
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