Originally published by Rivkin Securities
US stocks fell overnight as tariff concerns surfaced yet again after president Trump announced that a China tariff announcement is imminent. The Nasdaq 100 performed the worst out of the three main indices, falling 1.47%, while the Dow Jones fell just 0.35%. Shares in the two largest US listed companies, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) both fell overnight, down 3.16% and 2.66% respectively.
The next Federal Reserve open market committee meeting will occur on Wednesday next week at time it is expected to raise US interest rates by another 25 basis points (0.25%) to a range of 2-2.5%. This would mark the 8th rate hike for this cycle with a further hike in December also widely expected. The increasing interest rate spread between the US and Australia is likely to continue placing downward pressure on the Australian dollar which is currently just above of a two year low at US$0.717. The US 10-year bond continues to hover just below 3%, at 2.99%, and has struggled to break above this level, while the Australian 10-year bond is significantly lower at 2.63%.
Today the minutes of the most recent monetary policy meeting of the Reserve Bank of Australia will be released. The cash rate was kept unchanged at that meeting and the minutes are likely to show that the RBA continues to believe that accommodative monetary policy is still appropriate for the foreseeable future even after two years of record low interest rates.
Data Releases:
- Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes 11:30am