Short in AUDNZD. FInally got in on trace back to the newspivot level. The newspivot being the price just before the RBNZ Central Bank policy announcement on 26th May.
The Reserve Bank left its monetary policy settings unchanged, with the OCR remaining at 0.25%. However, the tone of the statement was more hawkish than we expected.
For the first time in over a year, the RBNZ published a forward projection of the OCR. This track starts to turn higher from around September 2022 – in line with market pricing and many analysts’ forecasts, but sooner than our early-2024 forecast.
The RBNZ has upgraded its activity forecasts overall. It has acknowledged the lull in activity over summer due to the lack of overseas tourists, but expects substantially higher rates of growth over the rest of this year.
The RBNZ recognises that inflation will spike higher in the near term, but continues to regard this as due to temporary factors. It expects inflation to slow to 1.5% by the middle of next year, before tracking up to a little over 2% in the following years.
The RBNZ noted that it will maintain current policy settings until inflation is sustained at the 2% target midpoint, and employment is at its maximum sustainable level – this was changed from “at or above”.
That reflects some concern around where ‘maximum sustainable’ lies, given growing reports of skills shortages while the borders remain closed.
The RBNZ expects wage growth to reach levels not seen since before the GFC, even with the unemployment rate falling only marginally over the coming years.
This contrasts with AUD :
They reiterated that they will not increase the Cash Rate until actual inflation is sustainably within their 2%-3% target range and that they are committed to maintaining highly supportive monetary conditions to support a return to full employment and for inflation to be consistent with their target. Reiterated that labour market is unlikely to be tight enough to spur materially higher wage growth until 2024 at the earliest.
According to TD some (TD Securities, ANZ and Westpac) the omission of a key sentence talking about the willingness to undertake further bond purchases shows the QE
program is currently under review. After the statement these banks changed their expectations for the July meeting and no longer see the RBA extending the YCC target
bond to the Nov-2024 contract and no longer sees the bank announcing another A$100 worth of QE.
TD Securities expects a smaller package of A$50 and Westpac expects a more flexible weekly open-ended program worth A$5 per week and argues the press conference
scheduled for Gov Lowe afterwards won’t be necessary just to announce the previously expected A$100 or even a A$50 program, but explanation of an open-ended
weekly program would require the bank to carefully explain that such a move is not a taper but more flexibility and actually more dovish.