by Kris Sayce on February 3, 2010
You can read the official press release from yesterday’s Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) board meeting here.
In a couple of weeks the RBA will release the full minutes of the meeting. If the official version is anything like the previous versions it will mention international economic conditions, domestic economic conditions, financial markets, and considerations for monetary policy… Blah, blah, blah.
Of course the unofficial version goes something like this: [pump, pump, pump...]
For all the bluff and bluster about wanting to return interest rates to “normal” levels, there’s absolutely no doubt that the RBA lost its bottle.
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by Kris Sayce on December 7, 2009
Your editor is on a double shift today. We’re switching between writing today’s Money Morning and filling in for Dan Denning at Daily Reckoning.
Over at Daily Reckoning we gave the Climate Change ‘tree’ a bit of shake. You can check out what we had to say later on today after our webgeeks post the article to the Daily Reckoning website.
But on this side of the building on Fitzroy Street we’re taking another swipe at the banks.
Last week we tipped our cap to Westpac for trying to make a buck out of the interest rate rises by anticipating the Reserve Bank of Australia’s next move.
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by Kris Sayce on December 4, 2009
Well we couldn’t find any Westpac bankers to high-five yesterday. It seems they were keeping their head down to avoid the flak.
Which is a shame because they should be holding their heads high for an ingenious move.
Sure, it may not pay off quite as they planned due to the ’scabs’ at National Australia Bank flinching and only raising interest rates by 0.25%.
But it’s the NAB bankers that will find themselves outcasts at the next Banking soiree. While the Westpac bankers will be welcomed to a rapturous and sympathetic ovation: “You tried your best boys and girls.”
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by Kris Sayce on December 3, 2009
This morning we were going to congratulate Westpac on their mind-blowingly ingenious move of increasing interest rates by 0.45%, even though the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) had only increased rates by 0.25%.
Don’t believe all the spin about ‘higher funding costs.’ There’s much more to it than that. What Westpac has done is the banking equivalent of hitting a six back over the bowler’s head…
Forget that, it’s the equivalent of doing a reverse sweep to hit the ball for six over the wicketkeepers head.
We don’t normally praise the banks for being smart, but if we see someone from Westpac today we’ll be sure to give them a high-five.
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by Kris Sayce on October 9, 2009
The stock market reaction to Westpac’s loss in its New Zealand court case was wonderful.
If you haven’t seen the news, then you won’t know that Westpac has been told it must pay almost $1 billion in back taxes to the New Zealand tax office.
The response from the market? Westpac shares finished 3% higher.
That reader, is something that can only happen in a bull market.
It is perhaps, confirmation the bull market has well and truly begun.
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