In my opinion, "Lowe" by name, and "low" interest rates by nature.
As predicted by me on 23rd March, no interest rate rise today. Also as predicted, one of the RBA's excuses for pausing was the global banking "crisis", a much over-hyped crisis that can have at worst only an insignificant effect on the Australian economy.
In my opinion, the balance between the interests of borrowers vs savers in Australia is strongly biased in favour of borrowers and against savers, for no good reason. Having regard to the RBA's actions over the last few years, I think that the RBA is not independent, although it may well be independent of politicians. In my opinion, the RBA appears to be unduly influenced by those who have exposure to borrowings. I think that the RBA's bias is not just against high interest rates, there appears to be a bias against normal interest rates that are not even particularly high. The low interest rates in Australia compared with the rate of inflation make no economic sense to me. In my opinion, "higher for longer" is just over the horizon, although it probably won't appear for a few months yet. Even if inflation turns higher, I can't see the current RBA doing much about it, except perhaps another hopelessly low token rate rise to give the appearance of economic management.
Here is a tip to help with assessing whether particular economic commentators (media hacks) are any good. If a hack states that "after NINE interest rate hikes in a row .... blah blah blah" then I would assess their economic skills as worthless - because it is not the number of hikes in a row that matter, it is the size of the hikes. Here in Australia, too many of the interest rate hikes have been low 0.25% hikes, mere trivial tokens compared with the rate of inflation.
For the XJO, the RBA's pause is positive, especially because many players had justifiably expected 0.25%. The last two weeks have witnessed a decent XJO rally that broke through several resistance levels. But it is now approaching the upper Bollinger which might knock some of the wind out of the rally's sails. I am thinking that it might be a good time to take some profits, and then wait to see which way the wind blows after Easter. Unpredictable events continue to be important market movers, examples being the influence of takeovers, and the OPEC+ oil price hike. I can't predict such events, so I am cautious about staying in rallies for very long atm.
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