Australia Rates Insights: Thoughts from the road (Asia edition)

Research evidence excerpt

Australia Rates Insights: Thoughts from the road (Asia edition)

Global Markets Research

22 July 2026Australia Rates Insights

Rates - Asia ex-Japan

Research Analysts

Thoughts from the road (Asia edition) Australia/New Zealand Rates

Strategy

Pushing back against an overly pessimistic take on housing and Andrew Ticehurst - NAL

migration; we expect the RBA to maintain a hawkish tilt. andrew.ticehurst@nomura.com

+61 2 8062 8611

• A majority of investors we met with across Asia last week expressed downbeat macro

views on Australia, with concerns centred around housing and migration. They

consequently expressed mostly dovish thoughts with respect to the RBA and rates.

• Our take is different. We are relatively relaxed with regard to housing and migration,

and expect RBA communication to remain tilted in a hawkish direction, amid ongoing

concerns over high inflation.

• We continue to express our thinking via a paidAustralia3m1yversusreceivedUS

3m1y position.

We spent much of last week in Asia, meeting with a range of investors, including central

banks, asset managers, banks and hedge funds. A key takeaway was that around 70-75%

of investors we met expressed relatively dovish views on the RBA. They generally thought

the RBA rate hike cycle was most likely over, and several noted that, even if the RBA were

to hike again, this would likely be seen as a policy error (in time), with rate cuts most likely

to follow. Consistent with this, many expressed a positive, dip-buying view on Australian

rates and some favoured short-end curve flattening trades, thinking that rate cuts could

come into view in time.

Many investors linked this thinking to a downbeat view on the local housing market,

following three rate hikes and recently announced tax changes for housing investors, with