Its Reserve Bank of Australia monetary policy Board meeting decision day.
- The announcement is due at 2.30pm Sydney time, which is 0430GMT
- The latest Bloomberg survey shows a unanimous call from economists and analysts for cash rate target to be left on hold at 1.5%
- I thought I saw one calling for a cut and another calling for a hike, but no, not according to this latest.
- In addition to the decision we'll get the accompanying Statement from Governor Lowe
Here is Westpac's preview:
- The Reserve Bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged in June. Rates were last moved in 2016, with cuts in May and August
- The Bank has highlighted the labour market and housing as key areas of concern. Developments for both will reinforce the 'on hold' decision. Labour market concerns will have eased with jobs growth surprising to the high side in both March and April, although movements in hours worked were less convincing. On housing, the RBA will keep a watching brief, monitoring the impact of recent macro-prudential measures.
- We continue to expect the RBA to remain on hold throughout2017 and 2018.
HSBC:
- A number of domestic activity measures have disappointed recently, but because this appears to be mostly weather-related, we expect the RBA to look through it.
- Housing prices fell in May, but this simply follows the usual seasonal pattern; we doubt the RBA has seen enough evidence of a slowdown to allay its concerns.
- With underlying inflation past the trough and growth expected to strengthen in late Q2 and into H2, we expect the RBA to remain firmly on hold.
ANZ:
- The focus will be the RBA's take on what has clearly been a weak Q1, along with the accumulating evidence of a sharp slowdown in house price inflation.
- The offsets are the strong global economy, the high level of business sentiment and the improvement in the labour market.
- We see rates on hold at 1.5%.Despite low inflation, the RBA does not want to fuel investor housing demand.
TD Securities:
- TD and unanimous consensus expect the RBA to pause again at 1.5%.
- Domestic news has been mixed with soft then strong retail sales, slow wages growth and strong employment since the May meeting, while the US growth outlook looks a little less robust.
- No need to mention the exchange rate but they will.
- The Bank will drop references to forecasts as that related to the SoMP and not relevant now.
