by Stephen Roberts | 17 Apr, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
Writing about the outlook beyond the RBA’s rate pause last week we considered that the various opposing factors influencing the cash rate outlook favoured a lengthy pause at 3.60%. Our view required continuing evidence of soft growth in household spending and...
by Stephen Roberts | 11 Apr, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
The RBA paused at its April policy meeting after ten consecutive interest rate hikes that cumulatively lifted the official cash rate 350 basis points from 0.10% in April 2022 to 3.60% set at the early-March 2023 policy meeting. The questions after the April 2023...
by Stephen Roberts | 3 Apr, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
Government bond yields fell sharply in March reflecting a marked change in market view towards believing central banks’ official interest rates are at, or close to their peak, and will be cut two or three times over the next year. Falling bond yields are heralding...
by Stephen Roberts | 27 Mar, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
In March, indications of slowing global economic remained limited. High inflation continued to ease slowly. Problems emerged at three US banks and Credit Suisse in Switzerland. Financial markets worried about a potential systemic banking problem in the making, but...
by Stephen Roberts | 14 Mar, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
US and Australian economic prospects are diverging and that may require the Federal Reserve (Fed) and RBA to deliver different official interest rate outcomes. To some extent, this has already occurred with the Fed having pushed its funds rate up to 4.75% and still...
by Stephen Roberts | 6 Mar, 2023 | Economic Weekly, Laminar Economist Stephen Roberts, Market Commentary
Changing views about how high interest rates might rise caused bond yields to lift in February and mixed results for major share markets. US economic readings were stronger than expected for the most part and reduction in inflation was less pronounced than expected...
