Tomorrow, we have an all-important meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia for the March month, and as we move towards the decision timings, here are the expectations as forecasted by the economists and researchers of major banks regarding the outcome.
The consensus amongst most economists and analysts is that the RBA will likely leave the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged at a record low of 1.50% tomorrow morning.
TD Securities
“The RBA is unlikely to shift from its neutral policy stance-disappointing the doves-ahead of a likely decent fiscal boost.”
“The RBA can retain its upbeat labour market outlook given the unemployment rate dropped to 4.9% in Feb, reinforcing the current stance of monetary policy is doing its job.”
“While the RBA does acknowledge there are risks to consumption, the Bank can afford to assess developments over coming months – the next read on consumption is Q1 GDP on 5th June.”
Westpac
“The Reserve Bank Board meets next week on April 2. Unusually, this meeting will be on the same day as the announcement of the Federal Budget at 7:30 pm on that evening. As such, we would expect that the Governor’s Statement will be fairly low key with little change from the sentiment we saw in the March meeting.”
“Westpac is anticipating that following the May meeting, the RBA will move to a clear easing bias, which will be justified by downward revisions in the growth forecasts. However, it is unlikely that there will be any hints of this action in the April Governor’s Statement.”
Capital Economics
Analysts at Capital Economics believe that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will keep the Official Cash Rate (OCR) unchanged at a record low of 1.50% on Tuesday, April 2nd.
“RBA will welcome the continued tightening of the labor market as unemployment dipped to an eight-year low of 4.9% in February.”
“We have become even more concerned about the economic outlook and lowered our forecast for GDP growth in 2019 from 2.0% to 1.5%. If we are right, GDP growth will be suggest the RBA may have to move earlier than expected and we have brought forward our forecast for the first rate cut from November to August. What’s more, we think the RBA will move faster and cut rates again in November and February.”
Share
