From the Australian Financial Review (gated) overnight: Dollar rise frustrates RBA board

Reserve Bank of Australia board ­member John Edwards speaking about the US Federal Reserve decision not to start to ‘taper’, which saw the Australian dollar to a three-month high:

“I want to see a lower dollar and it’s going to take us longer to get there – so it’s not great,” said Dr Edwards, who was an economics adviser to former prime minister Paul Keating.

Asked what level he would like to see for the dollar, he said: “I wouldn’t put a number on it. Lower is good.” And also:
  • Edwards downplayed concern about rising property prices “While you might say that the house price issue is effected by the level of our rates, it’s certainly not affected by the level of Fed rates, and what’s going on there really is an issue of timing of the normalisation of US momentary ­policy”
  • “it would have been better to have [the taper] sooner”
  • “I would have thought the main thing to be concerned about, overwhelmingly, is that the FOMC – in its wisdom – has come to the view the US economy as too weak to begin to taper. That’s quite concerning,”
  • “… the consensus of FOMC members is that growth is now, through 2013-14, weaker than they expected.”
Edwards expects the Fed was likely to slow bond purchases before the end of the year:

“Whether they taper this month, at the October meeting or the December meeting is more of a detail,” he said.

“The response to this decision, which seems to be universal indignation in markets, will likely prompt them to move faster than not.”—
The article says Edwards is ‘frustrated’ with the FOMC decision not to taper and the effect that had on the AUD (i.e. sending it higher). For the RBA, seeing the AUD higher is frustrating, they’ve repeatedly said they want it lower. If its strength persist it will be a factor in interest rate deliberations in the future, increasing the probability of a cut.
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