Dollar rises slightly ahead of Wednesday's inflation data

While the CPI figure is closely watched, markets are already expecting the Reserve Bank to move on interest rates next month.

Transcript

00:00The quarterly consumer price index is always all important, but it seems tomorrow's less

00:07so. According to the market, whatever the March quarter CPI is, a quarter of 1% cut

00:12is a certainty, and there's a sneaky 30% chance of a 0.35% cut to get the cash rate to around

00:193.75, and a 12% chance of a half percent. Today is President Trump's 100th day in office,

00:27and since he was inaugurated, the US dollar has fallen 10%, which is the exact inverse

00:32of Ronald Reagan's first 100 days. But it's an unfair comparison. In 1981, the Fed cranked

00:38US interest rates up to 22% to combat the inflation from the oil shocks of the 1970s, which had

00:44nothing to do with Reagan. In 2025, the Fed is cutting rates. Donald Trump's tariffs are

00:50likely to lift inflation and stop the rate cuts, but he's also been abusing the Fed Chairman

00:55Jerome Powell for not cutting rates fast enough. Tonight, the Aussie dollar was an oasis of

01:00calm at 64.2 US cents, up from 64 last night, and the local share market rose 1%. Woodside

01:07went up 1.5% after announcing a huge $27 billion gas project in Louisiana, not Australia. That's

01:15despite the fact that President Trump is trying to bring energy prices down with drill baby

01:20drill. But Woodside says it's too hard getting stuff approved here. Its expansion of the North

01:26West Shelf has been held up for six years. Last night, the oil price slid 2.4% and thermal

01:32coal caught fire, up 4.9%. And finally, Australian exports of wine to China have rebounded to more

01:39than a billion dollars over the past 12 months, largely because they are buying more expensive

01:44posh wine. Exports to the rest of the world declined 13%. And that's finance.