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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has kept the national interest rate on hold in line with widespread expectations from punters and investment banks alike.
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The timing is worth considering. Trump’s tariffs are about a day away (accounting for the U.S. time difference).
These are the much-touted reciprocal tariffs kicking in on April 2.
While there’s been seas of news coverage about those tariffs, nobody really knows yet what the hell they will look like; if they’ll stick, and whether or not Trump will stop posting on Truth Social long enough to double-check he isn’t tanking the economy.
It does feel as if he’s handed over the reigns to his team this second time around, especially Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick – who seems quite good at getting a tune out of Trump. But let’s get back to Australia.
Down Under, we’re still dealing with a cost of living crisis as most recently evidenced by the supermarket price gouging inquiry.
Mortgageholders are likely unsurprised by today’s news, but still a little miffed.
On the whole, though, the market has stopped reacting to interest rate decisions the last few times around (particularly more recently, given the obvious macro turbulence.)
I imagine that will eventually be the case for tariff headlines, too. Maybe a better word is “hope.”
Anyway, let’s get to the bit that matters – when will the RBA next cut rates? Well, it’s too hard to tell right now. Some analysts in the U.S. are predicting the Fed won’t make any cuts this year, but that’s perhaps overly pessimistic. However, it does look like the U.S. Gov’t has stopped caring about the economy.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” could take on a new meaning in 2025.
Why am I talking about America again? Because the whole world, for now at least, still looks to the leading global economy for guidance, even if it’s often a game of reverse-engineering.
And a cautious Fed is likely to inform the RBA, whether they want to admit it or not.
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The Big 4 banks all disagree. NAB is the most optimistic – it saw a cut in April – while ANZ says August, Commonwealth says May, and Westpac is perhaps taking the wise approach of calling a “June quarter” cut.
Clearly, they don’t want to be embarrassed here.
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