Economist Stephen Koukoulas' spot on rate call was months ahead of "starry-eyed" RBA
Stephen Koukoulas, the research fellow at Per Capita, a progressive thinktank, was forecasting the need for rate cuts as early as August last year.
He was the only one from a Bloomberg Survey in August 2018 who predicted a rate cut of any kind out of 21 economic groups/economists surveyed.
Koukoulas' forecast for Market Economics (pictured below) was remarkably accurate for where he foresaw rates as we got into the third quarter of 2019.
Even earlier, in June of 2018 he outlined "The remarkably simple case for an RBA rate cut" in a blog on his website.
In a series of tweets yesterday Stephen Koukoulas suggested "that may well be the last interest rate cut we'll see for a while"
"Is an interest rate cut a good sign or not? Well, like an ambulance at a car crash, it is good that it's there, but it's there for bad reasons"
"If only the RBA had taken this action a year ago and not been blindsided by house prices, finical stability, household debt and rose coloured glasses #RBAfail"
In an article for the The Guardian, Mr Koukoulas said the RBA was "starry-eyed" about the economic outlook.
He suggested errors and misjudgments had cost tens of thousands of jobs, with the unemployment rate rising, underlying inflation hitting record lows and annual wages growth stalling at a little above 2%.
"The RBA is now playing catch up," he wrote.
"Whether the RBA has done enough with a 1% cash rate to kickstart the economy to the point where wages growth and inflation pick up to more comfortable levels is not yet clear."
No other forecaster surveyed suggested there would be rate cuts coming, with several suggesting there were hikes on the horizon.
They included ANZ, CBA, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and NAB.
Laminar Capital were the group with the highest forecast by this quarter, predicting a cash rate of 2.25%.
