What to Watch - Week of 14 April 2025

Tapas Strickland | Markets Research

Past Week

• US trade policy uncertainty continues to swamp domestic developments. Markets have been extremely volatile reacting to headlines
• US exceptionalism appears to be waning with the USD (DXY -2.4%) falling even as yields have risen sharply (US 10yr +45.2bps to 4.45%)
• NAB revised its RBA call, now expecting the RBA to cut by 50bps in May, followed by 25bps in July, August, November and February to 2.60%

Week ahead

• A holiday-shortened week in Australia (and many parts of the world) with Easter Friday (18 April) and Easter Monday (21 April). Dataflow will continue to take a backseat to offshore trade/financial market developments
• RBA Minutes (Tuesday) pre-date the latest intensification in global uncertainty. Labour Force (Thursday) will also not give a clear read - the reference week spans Cyclone Alfred’s impact on Southeast QLD/NSW
• Offshore, all focus remains on the US Policy Developments with the US now having a 145% tariff on China. President Trump has also flagged an announcement on pharmaceutical tariffs
• Top-tier data in the US includes Retail Sales (Wednesday). However, second-tier data is likely to gain more prominence for a more real-time read. The Fed’s Powell (Wednesday) is speaking on the economic outlook
• Helping to shape the outlook will be Q1 earnings – Goldmans (Monday), Citigroup and BofA (Tuesday). The first of the big global tech names also report: ASML (Wednesday) and TSMC (Thursday)
• In Europe the ECB (Thursday) is expected to cut rates by 25bps in a close decision. Across the Atlantic the BoC also meets in what will be a very uncertain meeting
• In China, there is important data (Trade Balance Monday, Q1 GDP Wednesday), but again will take a backseat to trade developments
• If it wasn’t for global trade/tariff uncertainty, Q1 CPI in NZ (Thursday) would get a louder mention

View the full report here

Chart 1: USD is falling even as US yields are rising

Chart 2: NAB recently revised its RBA view

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