The Australian dollar can be found among the best performing G10 currencies today. AUD caught a bid following the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) monetary policy decision announced earlier today. While the RBA did not make a change to the level of interest rates or other monetary policy settings, some noteworthy changes were made in the policy statement. In its previous statement (from March), RBA said that it will be patient and monitor how the inflation situation develops. However, in a statement from today's meeting it removed the wording "patient" and said that new evidence on inflation and labor costs will become available over the coming months and the RBA will act accordingly. Nevertheless, the statement repeated that RBA will not increase the cash rate until inflation is sustainably in the 2-3% target range.
Those changes in statement wording boosted expectations for RBA rate hike this year. ANZ, one of the biggest Antipodean commercial banks, now expects RBA to deliver a 15 basis point rate hike in June followed by 25 basis point rate hikes in July and August, as well as one in November. Expectations of a more hawkish RBA can also be spotted in today's AUD price action. Taking a look at AUDCAD chart at D1 interval, we can see a strong upward move today. Pair broke above the mid-term price zone marked with 50% retracement of the downward move launched in early-2021 and continued to move higher. Pair is currently trading near 0.9500 - the highest level since May 2021. Next resistance zone to watch can be found ranging above the 61.8% retracement (0.9580).
Source: xStation5
