The mail I'm getting got a bit more official yesterday with Fitch suggesting they think the Reserve Bank isn't done. A lot of people thought the Reserve Bank was done cutting because fill-in Governor Christian Hawkesby basically said as much last week. On the inference that it was over, swap rates on the wholesale market started going up. Why should you care? Because if you owe money to a bank a lot of their income to lend comes from the wholesale markets. If it goes up so does your interest rate, which is what has been happening since last Thursday. Now this is where we get into subtlety and nuance. Technically Hawkesby said the bank remains open to further action, so if you lined Hawkesby up in court he could defend himself. But as always in these matters it is the between the lines stuff, the nod and the wink stuff, that markets read. And they are reading an end and, as a result, the numbers are rising. Tied in, if another cut is coming as Fitch suggests, things are further complicated with our dollar, given places like Australia are doing the opposite. Their Reserve Bank is closer to hiking than cutting. That affects how the world sees our economy and our currency, at 87cents to the Australian dollar and at 43cents to the pound, looks anaemic. For good measure, Fitch seems downbeat about our recovery. They are calling 2% next year by way of GDP. They were saying 2.7%. This then brings in the Government. The Government, in election year, would like 2.7% over 2%. 2% they'd be able to milk but 2.7% is home court advantage. If you want one more thing that kind of backs up the Fitch funk, Black Friday didn’t work. Spending was down on last year. Personally, I think that’s about it being a crock of you-know-what and it's more clickbait than it is bargains and people are over being ripped off. But that’s just me. So anyway, Hawkesby leaves with a trail of questions left behind as he heads to the beach. If you are one of the so-often quoted ones who are rolling out of one mortgage into another, these are still tricky times to try and get right and you want to hope Fitch has misread it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
