RBA Shadow Board recommends a rate hike at tomorrow’s monetary policy meeting

The shadow board cits high official inflation data and more:

  • Most recently, the monthly consumer price index (CPI) rose 5.6% in the twelve months to September 2023, while the quarterly inflation rate fell to 5.4% year-on-year in Q3, the lowest since the first quarter of 2022.
  • The RBA’s Trimmed Mean CPI, which excludes the most volatile items, grew by 5.2% year-on-year, still well above the RBA’s target band of 2-3%.
  • The labour market remains remarkably resilient but business confidence is softening further and the global economy, while surprising on the upside, faces considerable challenges, especially geopolitical.
  • On balance, the RBA Shadow Board recommends increasing the cash rate in November. It attaches a 62% probability that the overnight rate should increase to a level above 4.10%, a 37% probability that the overnight rate should remain on hold, and a 2% probability that the overnight rate should be lower.

The Reserve Bank of Australia ‘shadow board’ is made up of 9 voting members and 1 non-voting chair:

  • all distinguished macroeconomists, offers its own policy recommendation on the Monday before the official RBA decision. Members give probabilistic assessments of the appropriate target rate for each round, which are then aggregated. The higher the percentage attached to a given cash rate, the greater the confidence that this rate is the appropriate target.

An initiative sponsored by the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA)

RBA statement is due at 2.30pm Sydney time, which is 2230 US Eastern time and 0330 GMT.

Earlier:

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com. Source