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The Reserve Bank of Australia made the call to hike interest rates again in CY26, using its second board meeting to bring them up to 4.1% – and even with the wars in the Middle East changing things, Isaac McIntyre and Jonathon Davidson have been left wondering just how we got into this situation.
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McIntyre pointed out on this week’s HotCopper Wire episode that both he and co-host Jonathon Davdison had “waxed lyrical” about the cuts last year, mainly wondering why we were going down that path.
“I’ll give them the fact that few could have predicted these United States-Israeli attacks on Iran and the ensuing Middle East conflict, but under Trump, I think there’s always something going on to muck things up,” he said, pointing out this week’s ‘hike’ takes us back to February CY25 rate levels again.
Now, Australia is staring down the barrel of even more ‘hikes’ as Michelle Bullock and the RBA try to wrangle an economy teetering near recession.
On the podcast, JD warned: “Even if the Iran war ends tomorrow, it’s still gonna take oil and gas a long time to come back online due to both mothballing and rocket attacks as we’ve seen on Qatari gas infrastructure. You can’t just start a plant back up like a flick of a switch, which is why hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico tends to boggle things up for a few weeks longer than the actual shutdowns.”
“The question becomes: Who overburdened the poor camel? Why did the RBA cut last year? We might need to fire off an FOI and ask for all documents related to modelling around the removal of electricity rebates.”
There’s probably “a lot more pain” coming for Aussies, too, Davidson mused. “A bit of a bummer when it comes to vibes, but overall, not unexpected.”
If you want to hear more, listen to the full HotCopper Wire episode below.
You can also find the POD to listen to and download over on Spotify.
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Disclaimer, as spoken by Isaac McIntyre in the HotCopper Wire episode: Any information or advice in this HotCopper podcast recording is intended for education and entertainment purposes. Any advice is general in nature and does not take into consideration your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on general advice, you should consider whether it is relevant to your needs and read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement. And if you are unsure, please speak to a financial professional.
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