RBA Meeting Preview | Kathy Lien & Boris Schlossberg

The Reserve Bank of Australia meets tonight and new central bank governor is at the helm. Phillip Lowe, former RBA deputy governor succeeded Glenn Stevens and investors will be paying close attention to the new governor’s tone. Chances are he is going to play it safe and maintain the central bank’s upbeat outlook. The last time they convened they expressed confidence in the trend of growth and labor market. When Lowe spoke last month, he said the labor market is not as strong as the unemployment rate suggests and inflation is expected to remain low for some time. Taking a look at the table below, there has been as much improvement as deterioration in Australia’s economy since the last monetary policy meeting with broad improvements in China. So while RBA Governor Lowe may be optimistic, the main takeaway will be patience. AUD may fall on this but at a time when the central banks of the U.K., Eurozone, Japan and New Zealand are considering more stimulus, a neutral bias will make any declines shallow. In fact we believe the better trade is to be long AUD pre-RBA.