RBA: More confident, still patient – Nomura

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left its cash rate at 1.50% at today’s meeting, as was uniformly expected and its press release suggests that it has become a little more confident of global and domestic growth prospects, according to analysts at Nomura.

Key Quotes

“Indeed, its comments suggest some of its GDP forecasts could be raised by 0.25 percentage points in Friday’s quarterly statement on monetary policy (SOMP). The RBA also continues to believe that progress in reducing unemployment and having inflation return to target is likely to be only “gradual”. In this context, and with underlying inflation having run below the bottom of its 2-3% target band for eight consecutive quarters, we think a further period of cash rate stability remains the most likely outcome and continue to pencil in a first rate hike in February 2019.”