VIEW:Westpac: Can't Rule Out 50bp Hike This Month

Westpac note that the labour market report cements their our view "that the Reserve Bank will start to raise the OCR at this month's Monetary Policy Statement, with a total of three 25 basis point hikes by the end of this year. It's becoming clearer that the domestic economy is running hot, and that the degree of monetary stimulus that we currently have in place is no longer appropriate."

• "Financial markets have now more firmly moved in favour of an August OCR hike, and are even pricing some chance of a 50 basis point move. We don't see that as the most likely outcome, but we wouldn't rule it out – the Monetary Policy Committee has already shown itself to be an activist one, and if they felt that 50 basis points of tightening was needed in total, they wouldn't necessarily space it out for the sake of spacing it out."