The latest RBA interest rate decision is out, and the central bank has delivered another pause. The national cash rate remains at 4.35%.
The move had been widely anticipated by all of Australia’s big 4 banks, as well as investment bank analysts at Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and UBS.
Morgan Staley see the next meeting – in August, under the RBA’s 2024 meeting calendar – as posing a distinct risk of a rate rise.
Markets will now turn towards digesting the RBA minutes, but at this point, the story is pretty familiar to traders. We might get a cut later this year, but a lot of firms are calling early 2025.
As for the ASX, if there’s a widespread caution that the RBA could raise, it wasn’t obvious on the bourse.
The ASX200 posted its best gains in two weeks on Tuesday, up 0.9% to kick off lunchtime. All sectors were in the green.
Many analysts had been calling a November rate rise, but ANZ, long in Camp November, recently pushed out its forecast to early 2025. No shortage of counterparts have followed.
Markets in the US are divided on whether the US will cut this year in September or closer to Christmas. However, a 2024 cut is being priced in far stronger for the United States than what is the case down under.