Over the long UK weekend, the equity markets have buoyed optimism that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates this year, both the Fed Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin and his New York counterpart John Williams said yesterday that 'there will be rate cuts' — but the decision on when will depend on the totality of the data.
Overnight the RBA kept rates on hold at a 12 year high of 4.35% in the RBA press conference. Governor Bullock opened her speech by describing that things are a bit bumpy and challenging. “The board is not ruling anything in or out ... The best thing that the RBA can do for all Australians is to get inflation back to range." She kept a neutral tone, saying that "policy is restrictive and that we don't necessarily have to tighten again but we cannot rule anything in or out ... we might have to raise or we might not." The currency fell from 0.6630 to 0.6600 and opens at 0.6590 this morning. The other currency mover have been the Yen at that open at 154.50 today and still looks like it will head back to the intervention levels of last week.
In other markets, the yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.47%, Bitcoin rose 0.1% to $63,369.2, Ether fell 0.4% to $3,065.86, West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.2% to $78.63 a barrel and Spot gold was little changed at $2320 per ounce. As for the day ahead we are data light, but we do have UBS earnings, BP earnings and Walt Disney as for the speakers we hear from the Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari.
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