High bar for RBA to hike in August – TD Securities

Analysts at TD Securities assess the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) policy decisions.

AUD/USD to be pinned back below 0.6600

"The RBA left the target cash rate on hold at 4.35% as was widely expected, but the Statement and Press Conference fell short of the hawkish tilt anticipated by us and the market. The Bank's CPI forecasts for this year were lifted appreciably, setting a high bar for the Bank to hike by its August meeting. The Bank hasn't ruled out hiking, but given longer-term trimmed mean inflation forecasts were left unchanged, the implication is the RBA expects to keep the cash rate on hold for even longer. The forecasts imply the absolute earliest the RBA cuts would be Aug'25, if not later."

"Today's decision could see some profit-taking from AUD bulls on the crosses given the stretched run-up in AUD/NZD and AUD/CAD. Given RBA's lack of desire for hawkish action, we expect AUD/USD to be pinned back below the 0.66 handle, trading towards 0.64 by end June. We believe more USD strength lies ahead as the FX market is increasingly focused on inflation trends."