SYDNEY: The Australian and New Zealand dollars were near their lows for the week on Friday after another upside surprise on US inflation dimmed the prospects of early rate cuts there and bruised bonds globally.
Markets reacted by paring the chance of a June easing from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to 40% from 50%, while a move in August was now put around 70%.
The probability of an August rate cut from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) was put at 80%, having been fully priced a couple of weeks ago.
Futures imply only 38 basis points of RBA easing for all of 2024, with the RBNZ seen cutting by 61 basis points.
The RBA holds its next policy meeting on March 19 and the market already saw no chance of a move in the current 4.35% cash rate, while assuming the board would retain some form of conditional tightening bias.
“The case to hike rates further is weak given economic growth is well below trend, the unemployment rate is on a firm upward trend and inflation continues to fall,” said Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA.
“Maintaining a tightening bias signals to the fiscal authorities that it’s too early to declare the inflation fight over,” he added.
“We think the May Board meeting is the most likely one for the RBA to jettison its hiking bias, and our base case looks for a shift to an easing bias at the August meeting followed by a cut in September.”
The Aussie was left at $0.6571, having lost 0.6% in the wake of the US price data to as low as $0.6569.
A break of support at $0.6560 could see a return to $0.6500.
The kiwi dollar eased to $0.6115, after falling 0.4% on Thursday.
Support lies around $0.6088, with resistance up at $0.6175. Australian three-year bond futures slipped 6 ticks to a two-week low of 96.256, while 10-year bond yields jumped 12 basis points to 4.156%.
New Zealand two-year swap rates fared better, rising just five basis points for the week to 4.9400%.
Data out Friday showed manufacturing activity improved in February as the PMI rose to 49.3, from 47.5 in January.
Yet the government warned the country would see “significantly slower” economic growth for the next few years, ahead of a pre-Budget update in two weeks’ time.
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