Empower Blog Glenn Stevens

RBA Rate Decision – August 2015

Today the Governor and the Reserve Board met and kept interest rates on hold for another month. Now, they are continuing to stay at record low levels where the cash rate remains at 2%. Now for a first in this commentary series that you may have seen or may not have seen before, I'm going to actually cut to some audio of Glenn Stevens presenting a...

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RBA Rate Decision – February 2015 – Why did they drop 25 basis points?

So why did the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) moved on interest rates this month when most commentators including myself actually thought it would stay at the 2.5% cash rate. The 25 basis points reduction to 2.25%- what's behind that? Well, the story is around our currency and we really need to get our currency lower. I think you'll find the RB...

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RBA Rate Decision – December 2014

Today the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Board meets and kept interest rates on hold at 2.5%. The cash rate is now been at 2.5% since August 2013 and the Reserve Bank board won't actually meet until next February so we're going to see this low monetary policy position for the extended period. Inside the minutes of the last meeting, it was also ver...

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RBA Rate Decision – November 2014

Hello! On this Melbourne Cup Tuesday the race that stops the nation. Well it didn't stop the Reserve Bank board meeting today and again, as well predicted the Reserve Bank kept interest rates on hold at 2.5%. No big changes, no big surprises. The Reserve Bank is still concerned about the headwinds that the economy experiences in terms of its GDP nu...

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RBA Rate Decision – October 2014

Hello, the Reserve Board met today and kept interest rates on hold. Well anticipated that they were going to remain on hold and it's certainly a view that they are going to stay lower for longer. That's being about installing confidence into the market place for business to start doing more lending. In the last 4 weeks, there have been some big thi...

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RBA Rate Decision – September 2014

As widely anticipated, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) kept interest rates on hold for another month at 2.5% and this is following Glenn Stevens's commentary to the government last month, around where he saw the cash rate and where he saw the general economy. From a cash rate point of view the take out of that meeting and from his commentary wa...

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RBA Rate Decision – August 2014

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) today kept interest rates on hold for another month and that's twelve months now since the RBA last reduced interest rates which they did by 25 basis points. So the cash rate as of today stands at 2.5 which is still at record low levels. Now what's happening in the economy at the moment is there's not a lot a ...

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RBA Rate decision – November 2013

The RBA once again has left interest rates on hold at their board meeting today. So the cash rate still remains at record low levels (2.50%). If we look at the RBA Rate Indicator at the start of November only 5% of the market watchers expected the cash rate to be reduced at this meeting. So where are the rate’s heading?... Well it’s still ver...

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RBA Rate decision – August 2013

As heavily anticipated at its board meeting today the RBA has reduced the cash rate by 0.25% to 2.5%.  Glenn Stephen’s comments earlier this month around having ‘reasonable scope’ to reduce rates follows on from his previous comments regarding the slower than anticipated move in economic activity away from the mining sector into the general ...

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RBA Rates Decision – August 2012

The RBA board met today at their August Board Meeting and decided to leave the cash rate at the current level – 3.5%.  Even though the recent inflation data released indicates that inflation is no problem at all.  In fact, it is currently sitting under the target range of 2-3%, which could have given them justification for a further rate cut th...

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RBA Rates Decision – May 2012

The RBA has just announced a larger than consensus reduction in the cash rate – 50 basis points.  This is a very rare event for a traditionally conservative board.  So much so I have decided to add the entire statement from the RBA governor, Glenn Stephens. “At its meeting today, the Board decided to lower the cash rate by 50 basis poi...

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RBA Rates Decision – August 2011

For the first time in a while the RBA decision on interest rates was something worth watching.  Only two weeks before the inflation data was released last week, there was Bill Evans – Westpac’s chief Economist - on Sunday night TV talking about rates coming down.  Then stepping up to the plate is the Inflation Genie, which really put a spanne...

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RBA Rates Decision – December 2010

Given Glenn Stevens’ recent speech last month that he saw no reason for a further rate rise this year, it was no surprise that the cash rate remained on hold, following the RBA board meeting and cash rate announcement today. The economists are mixed in their view of what the future holds regarding rate rises, some are predicting further rate r...

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