Rate Cut or Not ?

Hi Everyone

Commentators are divided as to the likelihood of the Reserve Bank of Australia announcing another interest rate cut in August, especially in light of the June Quarter CPI report that has just been released.

The uncertainty surrounding Tuesday’s decision is reflected in the market, where pricing for a rate cut is about 50-50. The vast majority of economists still expect an easing.
In general, the market tends to get the RBA right rather than economists but we also need to look at what the market thinks via the strength of the Aussie Dollar which is trading near its recent highs above 0.76 USD.

I believe the RBA has sufficient data to warrant a cut to 1.50 % but can also see a delay till November as the Housing Market has been showing some resilience in the last quarter, even with APRA and the banks tightening credit policy to limit the amount of investment lending being made available to property investors.

Its interesting to note that we live in a world that is awash with QE but there has not been any market commentary on the possibility of the RBA actually using anything else than monetary policy to stimulate the economy.
It is reassuring to note that the RBA have considered what lessons can be drawn for Australia by looking at the experience of other Central Banks in the US, Japan and Europe that have adopted various methods of deploying monetary stimulus beyond rate cuts.

In contrast to where central banks see the state of their economies in terms of trying to stimulate growth, global markets are surging again after a short correction post the Brexit vote and asset price growth continues unabated as investors continue to chase yield.

This state of affairs does make the decision to invest in quality Australian residential property assets a far more reassuring one, especially when borrowing in AUD to fund these purchases.
We need to remain focussed on what the research can show us and not chase assets that have seen too much short term price appreciation in this cycle.

Always remember not to lose sight of the fundamentals as that will reduce the chances of making the sort of mistakes that many investors tend to make.

Let’s see what Tuesday brings us !

Best Regards,

Dr Andrew Unterweger MBBS, CFP®, Dip FP,FPA, AFA, SMSF
Chairman

Related Tags: Australian Housing Market | Australian Property Investment

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