Bill Evans, chief economist at WPAC says of the Reserve Bank of Australia announcement and statement "a very clear neutral bias has been retained"
In July this year the Governor changed June's neutral bias to an easing bias adopting the terms "over the period ahead further information should allow the Board to refine its assessment of the outlook for growth and inflation and to make any adjustment to the stance of policy that may be appropriate".
... this time ... the closing paragraph was the same as in September: "Taking account the available information ... the Board judged that holding the stance of policy unchanged at this meeting would be consistent with sustainable growth in the economy and achieving the inflation target over time". That means that a very clear neutral bias has been retained
There is more, but Evans concludes:
- We retain our view that rates will be on hold at the November Board meeting.
- Since the move in August the only real candidate for another move was going to be November when fresh information on inflation would be available and the Bank would have the opportunity to justify any move with its revised forecasts
- We are not expecting to see any significant revisions to the growth forecasts and our forecast for underlying inflation in the September quarter also points to no significant change in the outlook for inflation
- Consequently we see prospects for a rate cut at the November Board meeting being remote.
