AUD trader – a big CPI print puts RBA hikes back on the table

Positioning

Clients are skewed long, with 63% of open interest is held looking for upside in AUDUSD.

In the broad market, the big flow desks report that hedge funds (leveraged players) are small net short of AUDs, while ‘real money’ (pension funds, insurance, asset managers) have a large net short AUD exposure.

Factors that could move the AUD?

• The RBA minutes have put the market on notice that RBA rate hikes could make a comeback – they detailed that slower progress to get to the inflation to target (2-3%) would not be viewed favourably, and they have a lower tolerance for inflation. Housing is a key focal point, with Australian city house prices gaining for 7 straight months – the RBA noted that they’re seeing higher unit labour cost growth, coming in a time of declining productivity, which they see as inflationary.

• Today’s speech by RBA gov Bullock didn’t see her push back on the markets view that the minutes were considered hawkish, and the Governor didn’t guide interest rate expectations lower – this offers rates traders real confidence in their pricing.

• What is priced? Aus 30-day interest rate futures now price a 34% chance of a hike at the 7 November RBA meeting and a 54% chance of a hike at the December meeting – the rates door is more than ajar.

• Next Wednesday’s Australia Q3 CPI (11:30 AEDT) is, therefore, a big-ticket event risk for AUD traders and could heavily influence rate pricing and therefore the AUD. It’s too early to see the consensus expectations for the trimmed mean CPI forecast, but headline CPI is expected to fall to around 5.2% YoY (from 6%) – recall, the RBA have forecast inflation at 4.25% by year-end, so an above consensus print could suggest the bank revise their forecasts higher. Anything above 5.4% should make the 7 Nov RBA meeting a live and pricing closer to 50%.


• An above consensus Q3 CPI read, and we would also see the market price a hike in the Dec meeting as a near-done deal – the AUD should like that.

• AUD bulls will want to see a higher Chinese equity market with the 10-day rolling correlation between the CSI300 index and AUDUSD at reasonable 0.54. While we see the PBoC pumping liquidity into the market, China/HK property stocks can't find a friend, and we eye a thoroughly expected default today from Country Garden, as they scramble to make a $15m coupon payment. AUD bulls need to see a far better tape in the China equity market to support vs the USD – the AUD crosses seem the better tactical play.

• While ongoing concerns around China’s property sector keeps international money managers from moving overweight the region, China’s economy has likely troughed and is improving – we saw that in today’s Q3 GDP print and high frequency data dump.

• Calls that the govt is prepared to blow out the deficit above 3% of GDP, by issuing $130b of new debt to fund infrastructure projects is a bullish consideration. However, the recent raft of mini-stimulus measures should start to be seen in the data flow. China’s economy should improve from here, although the property sector needs to be carefully monitored.

• While we watch for direction from China equity, we see Australia’s relative terms of trade (ToT) on the rise – while the sensitivity we see between the AUD and its ToT comes and goes, the fact we see it rising should support the AUD.

• With geopolitical issues very much front and centre, trading the AUD against other risk-associated crosses makes sense – the US economy still looks incredibly resilient vs G10 countries and a higher AUDUSD would require the VIX index to pull back below 14% and the S&P500 to climb higher (as well as China equity).

What’s the play?

The best AUD bullish expression of late has been against the NZD, given both are China proxies and we can see on the daily that the market shares this view – momentum studies show higher levels into 1.0850/1.0900 before we see better supply are favoured.

AUDJPY approaches the recent highs of 96.00 and I favour it to get there, but there are Japanese intervention risks with short JPY positions at this juncture. The JPY also looks attractive as a geopolitical hedge – that said, if the market feels the situation in the Middle East will be contained and FX vol falls further, then AUDJPY could benefit from carry and diverging central bank policies.

GBPAUD shorts have been my favoured play, and technically price is favoured lower - we do have UK CPI due out at 5 pm today and there are risks with being short GBP. Unless it’s a significant upside surprise (consensus 6.6% headline, 6% yoy core), then the BoE are on hold for an extended period.