Economic News

International silver prices remain relevant to Australia's mining and industrial sectors, where movements in US dollar-denominated commodities interact with exchange rates, operating costs and procurement requirements.

Before the Monetary Policy Board's first decision of 2026, the cash rate target stood at 3.60 per cent. It is now 4.60 per cent, effective from 30 September. The full percentage point of tightening arrived in four equal steps of 25 basis points, spread …

Ask a borrower with a variable-rate home loan to describe 2026 and the answer may come down to four dates on the calendar: 3 February, 17 March, 5 May and 29 September. At each of those meetings, the Monetary Policy Board lifted the cash …

A rate decision arrives as a short statement and a press conference. The reasoning behind it arrives two weeks later. On Tuesday 13 October, at 11.30 am AEDT, the Reserve Bank is scheduled to publish the minutes of the Monetary Policy Board's September meeting, …

A single sentence from Governor Michele Bullock's 29 September media conference captures one of the central ideas in monetary policy. Reflecting on the Board's earlier decisions, she said: "We raised interest rates three times earlier in the year." Then came the qualifier: "A lot …

Monetary policy has a timing problem built into it. A central bank sets the cash rate today based on what it expects inflation to do in the future, yet the full effect of that decision on spending, hiring and prices does not show up …

Much of the public conversation about interest rates focuses on what goes out of household accounts each month. Less attention goes to what has been quietly building up alongside the loan. According to the Reserve Bank's October 2026 Financial Stability Review (FSR), released on …