RBA Leaves interest rates on hold
Date: Friday, 2nd February 2010
The RBA shocked seemingly everyone this week with their decision not to raise interest rates following their Board Meeting on Tuesday. Most economists expected that the Bank would lift the cash rate from 3.75% to 4.0% which would have resulted in standard variable mortgage rates averaging about 6.9% (as long as the banks didn’t grab a little extra).
Most of the economic news has been very positive of late. However the ANZ Bank’s survey of job advertisements across the major newspapers and internet found that job ads fell by 8.1% during January 2010. Business confidence figures released this week also showed weakness with the NAB index recording a fall of 11 points during the month.
Source: RP Data