RBA seen on extended hold – Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered Global Research analyzed the Reserve Bank of Australia's decision to increase the cash rate to 4.60% in a unanimous vote. The decision came after a meeting on September 29, as previously anticipated. The bank's statement highlighted rising inflation risks, but also recognized decelerating economic growth, eased labor market conditions, and falling housing prices.

The bank signaled a more cautious tone from Governor Bullock at the press conference, suggesting that a rate hike and hold were discussed during the meeting. She refrained from mentioning another rate increase in Q4 and emphasized the delayed effects of monetary policy transmission following the hikes. The research team concluded that the central bank is likely done with rate hikes.

The AUD/USD pair fell to a nine-week low below 0.7000 in response to the RBA Governor's cautious remarks. Meanwhile, USD/JPY struggled to capitalize on the overnight gain from a one-week low, consolidating near 157.50 in Asian trading hours. Speculation about a possible US-Japan joint intervention was fueled by concerns over the Japanese Yen's weakness, which was further supported by hawkish comments from the Bank of Japan.

Rising expectations for additional Fed rate hikes and inflation fears due to oil prices continued to push US bond yields to record levels, aiding the US Dollar's near two-month high and bolstering the pair. Gold showed a modest recovery in the early European session, but failed to break above $4,150 and remained near the lowest level since August 4.

The article also mentioned that Chainlink (LINK) dipped below $15.00, losing some of its 10% gain from the previous day, as the launch of its new interoperability protocol and integration with Swift ledger for tokenized deposits and cross-border payments were announced.