RBA cash rate decision 4 December 2018

[Guest Carol from Vista Financial]

Merry Christmas says the RBA. No changes to the cash rate.

Here's some interesting bits of today's announcement, which will be the last until 2019:

"The global economic expansion is continuing and unemployment rates in most advanced economies are low. There are, however, some signs of a slowdown in global trade, partly stemming from ongoing trade tensions...

Financial conditions in the advanced economies remain expansionary but have tightened somewhat. Equity prices have declined and credit spreads have moved a little higher. There has also been a broad-based appreciation of the US dollar this year. In Australia, money-market interest rates have declined, after increasing earlier in the year. Standard variable mortgage rates are a little higher than a few months ago and the rates charged to new borrowers for housing are generally lower than for outstanding loans...

One continuing source of uncertainty is the outlook for household consumption. Growth in household income remains low, debt levels are high and some asset prices have declined. The drought has led to difficult conditions in parts of the farm sector...

Conditions in the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets have continued to ease and nationwide measures of rent inflation remain low. Credit conditions for some borrowers are tighter than they have been for some time, with some lenders having a reduced appetite to lend. The demand for credit by investors in the housing market has slowed noticeably as the dynamics of the housing market have changed. Growth in credit extended to owner-occupiers has eased to an annualised pace of 5–6 per cent. Mortgage rates remain low, with competition strongest for borrowers of high credit quality."

You may read the full release here.