Tag Archives: rba

November 5, 2013 · 4:14 am

Strong dollar casts cloud over outlook

The strong Australian dollar is keeping the Reserve Bank of Australia on edge as it observes tentative signs of improvement in the non-mining sectors of the economy.

The central bank appears likely to hold interest rates steady well into 2014 as it tries to assess how competing forces – the boost to activity from record low interest rates against the depressive effects of a high dollar, rapidly receding mining investment and below-average global growth – will work on the economy over the next few months.

The RBA has taken heart from evidence that a string of rate cuts that have pushed the cash rate down to 2.5 per cent are biting, and households are shedding much of their recent caution and life is coming back into the housing and equity markets.

As evidence of this, it points to increased demand from households for finance and a shift among savers away from low-risk assets.

In a clear warning for those hoping for more official interest rate cuts, RBA Governor Glenn Stevens said that the full effects of the rate cuts made this year are yet to be felt.

But nor does the RBA seem to be in a hurry to hike rates back toward more normal levels.

Its chief concern is the continued strength of the dollar, which has sat around the 95 US cents mark for the past month.

At this level, Stevens said, it “is still uncomfortably high. A lower level of the exchange rate is likely to be needed to achieve balanced growth in the economy”.

The RBA’s ability exert influence on the exchange rate is minor – mainly through the interest rate differential between Australian and US official interest rates – but at the margin it could encourage the central bank to hold rates lower for longer.

Another argument to keep interest rates down is doubts about how durable recent improvements in non-mining activity may be. As Stevens admitted, although private demand outside the mining sector was expected to pick up, “considerable uncertainty surrounds this outlook”.

Another concern is the move by the big banks to begin inching up their lending rates, irrespective of the stable cash rate.

There is probably never a particularly comfortable time to be a central banker, but the next few months could be a particularly white knuckle time.

 

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October 23, 2013 · 1:01 am

Forget fuel spike – tame underlying inflation means no price fears for RBA

A surge in the cost of fuel (up 7.6 per cent) helped drive  a 1.2 per cent spike in headline inflation in the September quarter.

But if you want a clue to what the Reserve Bank of Australia will make of the Consumer Price Index, focus on the measures of underlying inflation, when the quarterly rise was a more moderate 0.65 per cent.

As a result, underlying inflation is sitting around 2.3 per cent – virtually bang on the RBA’s forecast.

There are a few things for the central bank to keep an eye on.

One is the growth in house prices as the long-awaited recovery in the housing market gathers pace. While slow wages growth may help constrain inflation in real estate, the RBA will be increasingly alert as time goes on to the risk (remote for now) that if interest rates are kept low for too long they could fuel risky borrowing. But this is a problem that is a long way off. Economics conditions are still too soft for there to be talk of a rate rise just yet.

The other main factor is the lower exchange rate, and the effect that has had on push up the cost of imports.

If, as expected,  the US recovery gradually reasserts itself after the debt ceiling madness of recent days, the dollar is likely to slide further.

Overall, there is little in the Consumer Price Index numbers that is unexpected, making a November interest rate move no more or less likely.

The behaviour of inflation has caused little concern for the central bank for some time now.

In its most recent forecasts, released in August, the RBA stuck by the outlook it outlined earlier in the year – underlying inflation to hover around 2.25 per cent (in the lower half of its 2 to 3 per cent target band) through to the middle of next year, and gradually rise to around 2.5 per cent thereafter.

It bases its benign outlook on its belief that all the forces acting on prices – some to force them up, some to force them down – collectively cancel each other out.

One of the big positives for households in recent years has been the strength of the currency, which has made imports (particularly clothes, electronics, cars etc) extraordinarily cheap and affordable.

But the dollar’s fall against the US currency in recent months (notwithstanding burst in dollar strength in the last couple of weeks), has seen this boost to household spending power fade.

So, if this was happening in isolation, the effect would be to force prices up.

But softness in the domestic economy, which has seen both economic activity and wages growth slow, means retailers risk quickly losing customers if they push up their prices too fast.

In the RBA’s judgement, the net effect of these opposing forces (a weaker dollar forcing the cost of imports up while a softening labour market and slower wages growth holds back consumer spending) on inflation will be negligible.

 

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August 5, 2013 · 2:07 am

Flat retail leaves rate cut door open

No wonder the Reserve Bank of Australia appears so comfortable with the inflation outlook.

When retail sales fail to grow in a quarter, and edge just 1.1 per cent higher in the course of a year, that tells you everything you need to know about the extent of consumer caution and a lack of pricing power among retailers.

For a central bank contemplating a cash rate cut to 2.5 per cent, the environment doesn’t get much more unthreatening than this.

And the RBA Board, when it meets tomorrow, will have to taker into account the market’s emphatic expectation that monetary policy will be eased.

But this rate cut will not be the political tonic that governments usually get from moves that make borrowing cheaper – this time around it is a potent sign of how soft conditions in the economy have become – and how much more work the RBA may yet have to do.

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July 24, 2013 · 1:57 am

Low inflation gives room for rate cut, but no trigger

The Reserve Bank of Australia has ample room to cut interest rates if needed following evidence that inflation was muted in the June quarter, but an August rate cut remains unlikely.

While the central bank appears in no rush to ease monetary policy from its already very-low 2.75 per cent, confirmation that headline inflation grew by just 0.4 per cent in the June quarter, pushing annual growth down by 0.1 of a percentage point to 2.4 per cent, suggests it could cut the cash rate further without immediately feeding a dangerous build-up in inflation.

But the Reserve Bank is likely to keep a wary eye on underlying price pressures, particularly as the weaker dollar means the cost of imports is set to grow more sharply.

Official figures show underlying inflation grew by 0.6 per cent in the June quarter, holding the annual rate steady at 2.4 per cent – just below the middle of the central bank’s 2 to 3 per cent target band.

The most significant price increases in the quarter were for hospitals and medical services (up 3.4 per cent), tobacco (3 per cent), furniture (4.8 per cent) and rents (1.1 per cent).

These were largely offset by falls in the cost of domestic tourism (down 4 per cent) and cheaper fuel (down 3 per cent).

There is nothing in the result that will surprise the RBA, which has said it expects inflation to remain “consistent with the target” for the foreseeable future.

The central bank is likely to closely monitor the evolution of inflation pressures from overseas following the rapid depreciation of the dollar since April.

This effect is yet to show up consistently in the official inflation numbers.

The average price of tradeable goods and services – which comprise about 40 per cent of the consumer price index – rose by just 0.3 per cent in the June quarter, while average inflation among non-tradeable products was 0.5 per cent, mainly due to the pick up in housing activity.

The extent to which the high dollar and fierce international competition has helped hold inflation down was underlined by figures showing tradeables inflation fell 0.7 per cent in the 12 months to June, compared with a 4.3 per cent rise in non-tradeable prices.

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