Empower Blog Economic conditions

RBA Rate Decision – April 2018

Today, Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met for April and they kept the ash rate on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there as both the Reserve Governor and the Board are flagging to industry and business that they're in no rush to move the rates higher anytime soon.   The reason for that is they still want to see stronger economic growth...

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RBA Rate Decision – March 2018

At the March 2018 RBA board meeting, we saw the cash rate remain on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there — we know that the rate has been widely tipped to stay on hold from most economists around the country. This is an interesting point because what Governor Lowe made mention in February was that he doesn't see any strength in moving the cash rat...

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What’s APRA’s Next Move?

In this How-To Session we're going to explore what the potential move from APRA might be after the macro-prudential regulations they introduced in late 2014. Firstly, who is APRA? APRA stands for the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, and their job is to regulate the lenders who lend money out into the marketplace. Now, when you've go...

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Top 5 Tips when Investing in Hobart

Today I want to talk about investing in Hobart. I still remember the first time that I went to this wonderful place to visit. There were green, rolling hills— the environment is amazing! But the question is — besides the fact that they've got over 2,000 kilometres of walking tracks, there are 18 national parks, there are world heritage si...

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RBA Rate Decision – February 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Board met for the very first time in 2018, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Again, no surprises there. The reason for that is because inflation numbers came out last week and the overall year-to-date number for 2017 was only 1.9%. We all know that they want to keep the inflation bandwidth between 2% ­– ...

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RBA Rate Decision – December 2017

At the December board meeting today, the Governor and the Board has kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. This is the sixteenth consecutive month we've seen the cash rate remain on hold at 1.5%. Now, the big news has been around the announcement of a Royal Commission into the banking sector to try and bring a bit more transparency into what's happ...

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RBA Rate Decision – November 2017

On the first Tuesday of the month where the nation stops for a horse race called the Melbourne Cup, the RBA have met and they've kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Now, the cash rate hasn't moved since August 2016, so obviously the RBA are feeling quite comfortable where they have the cash rate. The reason for this is the lenders and the regul...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2017

Same old, same old from the RBA today, the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So no real movement.   In terms of economic news, let's look globally first, and the US is probably the main story here. We did see the Trump administration release a Tax Reform package. Now, this tax reform package is all about that one flat tax rate of 20%. T...

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Where to Invest $10k – A Guide to Rentvesting

Ben is a front cover star on this month's Money Magazine issue!!!  So where does he think you should invest $10,000? Well, you can't buy an investment property with $10k, but you can definitely invest in your potential!! This is a golden insight, particularly after his article, A Guide to Rentvesting, the new way to invest, especial...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2017

Today, Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and, as widely anticipated — and it's going to be a bit of a broken record — the cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. So with a cash rate on hold, and basically all the levers doing their thing, I wanted to focus in on jobs —the unemployment story of the Nation — because this is going to be th...

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RBA Rate Decision – August 2017

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and—no surprises here — cash rate remains on hold at 1.5%. We did see some interesting commentary come out of the RBA over the July period, and some of that commentary was around what they thought was an ideal cash rate — around 3.25%. Now, with the current cash rate sitting at 1.5%, the market...

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RBA Rate Decision – July 2017

FACT SHEET: Changes on Government Fees and First Home Initiatives (Effective since 1 July 2017) [gravityform id="23" title="false" description="false"]   Today the Reserved Governor and the Board met and they've kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for the start of the new financial year. Let's have a look at some of the economic data tha...

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How to Protect your Portfolio from the Inevitable Storms?

Today what I want to talk about is How do you protect your portfolio from the inevitable storms that you will face if you want to play this game for the long term? We've just had a world record here in Australia—we've had over 25 years without a “technical” recession, which means that no other developed economy in the world has actually do...

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