Adrian Vanzyl on CBA’s Rate Hikes Are Finished Call
The country’s biggest bank just made a call that would have seemed premature a week ago. As Adrian Vanzyl, I think the timing says as much as the statement itself. Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn told a parliamentary committee today that he believes the Reserve Bank’s rate hikes are probably finished. That’s a notably confident claim. It comes just one week after the RBA delivered its fourth hike of the year. It also comes days after CPI data cooled market expectations of a fifth.
Adrian Vanzyl finds the sequencing here genuinely interesting. A week ago, this site covered the RBA hiking to 4.6 per cent. At the time, it cited the Middle East conflict, AI-driven demand and domestic capacity pressure as live risks. Days later, softer-than-expected CPI data cut November hike odds to around 20 per cent. Now the CEO of Australia’s largest bank is willing to say publicly that the tightening cycle is probably over. That’s three data points in eight days, all pointing the same direction. That’s a much stronger signal than any single one of them alone.
Markets Are Already Positioned for a Pause, Even Offshore
Today’s market action backs up that reading. The ASX rose for a third straight session, with real estate leading gains. That’s a sector that tends to rally specifically when investors expect borrowing costs to stabilise. The Nasdaq hit a fresh record high overnight too. Adrian Vanzyl thinks the reason matters: markets are increasingly confident the US Federal Reserve will hold rates steady at its October 27-28 meeting. That removes one more source of global tightening pressure. It comes at the same time Australia’s own cycle looks to be topping out.
There’s a telling detail buried in today’s bond market too. Australian and US 10-year yields are both sitting above 5 per cent, among the highest levels in years. Yet one market commentator described today’s surging US rates as a bigger problem for others”than for Australia specifically. Adrian Vanzyl thinks that framing is worth remembering. It suggests the next phase of this story may be less about whether rates keep rising here. It may be more about how other economies cope with global borrowing costs Australia has already adjusted to.
Conclusion
I’d read today, in Adrian Vanzyl’s view, as the moment market sentiment caught up to where the data had already been pointing. Comyn’s comments aren’t a guarantee the RBA won’t move again. Central bank cycles have surprised confident forecasters before. But a major bank CEO saying so publicly is a meaningful signal. A third straight day of ASX gains backs it, along with a Fed widely expected to hold. That’s a meaningfully different mood than the one this site was describing just a week ago. The question now shifts from whether the RBA is finished to how long markets stay confident in that call. The next piece of data will test it.
