Empower Blog Cash Rate

RBA Cash Rate Decision – December 2018

On this first Tuesday of December the Reserve Governor and the Board met as we enter the festive season, and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. I will come back to what's happening in the domestic economy, but first of all I want to talk more broadly about what's happening in the global economy. Most namely the biggest story of the last six...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – November 2018

On this Melbourne Cup Tuesday, Reserve Governor Lowe and the board met and they've kept the cash rate on hold for another month. Really, what we're seeing here is no new stories — inflation is just non-existent. The September CPI data came in at 0.4% increase, which took the annual rate to 2%. Now, the market was expecting a 0.5% increase so w...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – October 2018

On this first Tuesday in October, the RBA Board met and, really, the challenge was, “What could they do?” They did very little — probably sipped a bit of tea because there's nothing more for them to do with the cash rate. And this may be the case for several years to come. Now, why is that? Especially considering that the GDP numbers in Ju...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – September 2018

Today, the Reserved Governor and the Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5% for the first month of spring. There's obviously been a lot happening over the course of the last month. We now have a new prime minister — ScoMo as we like to refer to him — so, Scott Morrison takes over from Malcolm Turnbull. Now, the economy, lik...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – August 2018

The Reserve Bank Board of Australia met, and they’ve kept the cash rate on hold for another month. We haven't seen a cash rate movement since August of 2016.   Now, on the positive side, we actually saw growth as good — growth is actually going alright. So, that's positive. Business confidence and business investments are actually...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – July 2018

As we start the new financial year, the Reserve Board met today and, as wildly anticipated, they rinsed and repeated, keeping the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. Now, even though the cash rate is on hold, I believe that what we’re going to see over the course of the next few months — subject to what happens in the Royal Commission — is banks li...

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RBA Cash Rate Decision – June 2018

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and — no surprises here — cash rate is on hold at 1.5%. So, a bit of a “rinse and repeat” as I like to say. And that's definitely going to be the case —  I'm calling it here now —it’s definitely going to be the case right through until the end of 2018, and I can't see that changing anytim...

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RBA Rate Decision – May 2018

Note: To download the Money SMARTS Checklist, go to www.empowerwealth.com.au/money-smarts or click here. Today Governor Lowe and the Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold for a 21st consecutive month. So we haven’t seen a change to the cash rate since August 2016. So let’s take a look at what’s happening in the positive side of ...

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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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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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