A tumultuous week for finance nerds like me who for years have excitedly marked the first Tuesday of the month in our calendars as “Reserve Bank Board Meeting Day”. This week was the last RBA board meeting on the first Tuesday of the month… the next one will be Tuesday March 19 as the RBA… Read more »
Interest rates may be on hold after this week’s RBA board meeting but thousands of homeowners are still paying more for their home loan because they have fallen onto so-called “back-book” rates. Back-book rates are where existing loyal customers are being charged a higher interest rate than new “front-book” customers. That difference is as much… Read more »
For weeks I’ve been pointing toward Wednesday’s December quarter Consumer Price Index (CPI) announcement as being crucial to setting the tone for interest rates this year. Well, the result was really encouraging and basically signalled the top of this interest rate cycle. The headline CPI rose 0.6 per cent for the December quarter and 4.1… Read more »
David Koch is back for a brand-new season of Your Money & Your Life, airing every Thursday 2PM (AEDT) on the Seven Network from February 1, 2024. Your Money & Your Life, which first debuted in 2021, is a personal finance TV show aimed at helping all Australians save, spend, invest and manage their money… Read more »
RBA Board meeting week and it was steady as she goes. A change in RBA Governor from Philip Lowe to Michele Bullock made no difference at all… and I suspect that was the point. There was all sorts of talk in the lead up to the meeting about whether Michele would stamp her own unique… Read more »
You know how ropeable I am about the Reserve Bank’s comments two years ago reassuring Australians to go out and borrow with the comfort of knowing interest rates would not rise until 2024. It was negligent for them to make those comments. Financial markets were warning of a then-imminent breakout in inflation and the need to… Read more »
This week’s quarterly inflation figures are the lowest since September 2021. After last week’s very low unemployment figure, we knew this week’s quarterly inflation figure would play a critical role in the next RBA decision… it had to offset the tight labour market. And it did. The June quarter CPI was 0.8 per cent and… Read more »
Yes, it’s that time of the month when the Reserve Bank decides your mortgage repayments. This time they’ve given us a breather. On Tuesday, the RBA kept official interest rates on hold at 4.1 per cent. BUT (yes, I deliberately put this in capitals) don’t think this is the end of the rate hike cycle.… Read more »
Yes, rising interest rates stealthily reduce your borrowing capacity. Fortunately there are a few simple things you can do to increase it. I’ve talked about this a few times over the last couple of months. Not only do rising interest rates increase loan repayments, they also reduce your borrowing capacity because the so-called “serviceability test”… Read more »
Existing bank home loan customers are being financially screwed like never before. But it’s up to you to fight with your bank. For example, if someone took out one of the big four banks’ lowest variable rates this time just last year they would now be on a rate that is, on average, 0.44 per… Read more »
