Australia’s QE call shapes up as a cliffhanger

Cooling off: People enjoy their afternoon on the Bondi Beach in Sydney amid the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases across the New South Wales state. Bond investors are jittery as the country’s three-year bonds rallied overnight. — AFP

SYDNEY: The Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) (pic) first meeting of 2022 is shaping up as a cliffhanger and leaving economists split over the fate of its bond-buying programme as the Omicron variant adds to the uncertainty.

Eight of 14 economists expect the RBA will scrap quantitative easing (QE) at its Feb 1 meeting, a survey showed. The other six, including Westpac Banking Corp’s Bill Evans, see it scaling back from the current A$4bil (US$2.8bil or RM11.7bil) weekly pace and ending purchases in May.