Deutsche Bank pushes back their call for the...>

RBNZ: Deutsche Bank pushes back their call for the first RBNZ hike to February

2019; looking for 3 hikes in total for 2019. Deutsche previously looked for an

August hike, predicated on "an acceleration in price and wage inflation in the

first half of 2019. With headline CPI printing at 0.5%qoq in Q1-18, and with

non-tradables inflation at just 2.3%yoy, it looks unlikely now that this

acceleration is going to emerge as quickly as we had previously anticipated.

This is despite very strong employment growth that has delivered a near-decade

low in the unemployment rate. We continue to think though that the RBNZ will

move before the RBA: but our pick is now for the RBNZ to hike by 25bps in

February 2019. We expect to see three hikes in total in 2019. We would however

characterise the risks around our call as tilted towards an earlier start to the

hiking cycle (i.e. November 2018), though this would require a significant

pick-up in inflationary pressure in coming quarters."