Wednesday, November 20, 2013

AUD: RBA Minutes from Nov 5

The AUD rallied yesterday after the release of the RBA's meeting minutes. I don't think the market expected much change from the RBA's statement back in Nov 5. Some relevant highlights:

+ growth of major trading partners remain around long-term average, and expect to pick up slightly in 2014
+ recent Australian growth at below-trend
+ economic headwinds from fall in mining investment, high AUD, weak public demand 
+ housing prices are rising 
+ future business investment predicted due to low level interest rates
+ next year growth expected to be below-trend but will pick up
+ RBA closely monitoring house prices
+ remains concerned about high AUD
+ lower AUD needed for balanced growth
+ no change to interest rates, RBA would like to gauge effects before making any future changes

My summary is that the RBA would like to reduce interest rates further, but is constrained by a potential housing bubble. Seems like the market interpreted this as no immediate threat of a rate cut.   

BoJ will be releasing its monetary policy decision tomorrow. I don't expect any changes. The next RBA announcement is on December 3, a few weeks away. I believe the bulls will have another week to accumulate and drive up the AUD before taking some profit. 

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