Empower Blog Interest Rate

RBA Cash Rate – February 2020

On this first Tuesday of February as part of the new 2020s, the new decade, the RBA had a tough decision to make today. They had some really positive economic data flowing through from the end of 2019 that consisted of a really good unemployment story. It also said that retail spending had at a bounce in November, so that was positive. Ultimatel...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate – December 2019

Today Governor Lowe and the reserve board met for the final time in 2019 and they kept the cash rate on hold at 0.75%. Now, in 2019 we saw three rate cuts. And for all of those people who love the data, what's interesting about that is between August 2016 and May 2019 — 34 months — the cash rate was on a hold at 1.5%. So they've definitely tri...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate – November 2019

On this Melbourne Cup Tuesday in November, the Reserve Board met and they've kept the cash rate on hold at 0.75% — and that's on the back of stable unemployment. So we haven't seen unemployment deteriorate — in fact, it improved — but more about that later. And we’ve also had some commentary coming out of the Reserve Bank, in regards to ...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate October 2019: Third Time Lucky?

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met for the first Tuesday of October and they've cut the cash rate.   Now, 75% of economists believed that this was going to be the case.  If you were listening to some of the commentary last week from Governor Phillip Lowe around his concerns in the market, it was pretty clear that he was signall...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate September 2019

G'day and welcome to September and on the first Tuesday of this month Governor Lowe and the RBA Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1%. Now, some punters might have been thinking, “Well are we going another 25% lower?”, but really most economist believe that's going to be next month. So I suspect the board decided not to spook t...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate August 2019: Is it Time to FIX Your Rate?

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1%. Now that's obviously on the back off two rate cuts that we sold in June and July, which took the cash rate down to 1%. So the consensus is that we needed to see some time to see what impact those two particular rate cuts have had in terms of confidence, sentime...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate July 2019: Twice in a Row?

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and they changed the cash rate for the second consecutive month, dropping the cash rate down by another 25 basis points. This is reasonably well-signaled, even though some economists still thought that the RBA may wait until August. So, what is their agenda? Well, if you look at the minutes — and ...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate June 2019: The Cash Rate Announcement We’ve All Been Waiting For

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met and, yes, we have a rate movement. That's right — a 25 basis point cut, bringing the cash rate down from 1.5% down to 1.25%. For all you data nuts, I'm going to give you a little bit of a backstory in regards to where the cash rate has been. So it is the first rate move of any rate movement si...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate Decision – April 2019

Today Governor Lowe and the Reserve Board met for their April board meeting and they kept the cash rate on hold at 1.5%. No surprises there in the lead up to an upcoming election — we’re only a month or so away from the Federal Election.   I want to start looking globally first — so let's do around the grounds globally. The US market ...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate Decision – March 2019

On the first Tuesday of March the Reserve Governor and the board met, and they kept the cash rate on hold once again. But certainly what a difference a month makes when it comes to what’s likely going to happen in the economy moving forward and what’s going to happen to the cash rate! In a minute, I want to talk more about what Bill Evans said...

Watch Video

RBA Cash Rate Decision – February 2019

Today Governor Lowe and the reserve board met for the first time in 2019 for their February cash rate decision. That decision was to keep the cash rate on hold — but for the first time I suspect that that board meeting would have gone on longer than normal. And that’s because there has been some deterioration going on in the economy. I wanted...

Watch Video