BlackRock Australia head of fixed interest Stephen Miller in the Australian Financial Review

  • Headlines crossing on Bloomberg :
  • Sees massive flows into AUD bonds from Japan and Europe
  • Sees at least 2 RBA rate cuts this year
  • Says QE is driving demand for Aussie bonds

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Separately, there was an article was in the Australian Financial Review late yesterday. Its gated: BlackRock says more commodities pain on the way for Australia

  • "I am a bit more negative on the economy than most"
  • "The reason is that the expectations of capital expenditure numbers that were released in late February were very worrying. As expected, mining investment fell off a cliff. But there was very little evidence that investment in other parts of the economy was occurring to take its place. I think that the decline in commodity prices has yet to flow through to the economy. Just as higher commodity prices provided a massive income boost in the period up to 2013, they're now providing a massive income contraction."
  • This income squeeze "is likely to be very, very big in the first half of 2015 and going forward, because we've seen some really sharp declines in commodity prices this year"
  • "I can see at least two more cuts in interest rates from here, and I think it's much more likely that we'll see three interest rate cuts than just a single move."