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Investment Watch is a quarterly publication delivering insights into equity strategy and economic trends. The Summer 2026 edition explores global and Australian growth outlooks, structural shifts in asset allocation, and highlights opportunities across AI, resources, property, and income strategies to help investors navigate volatility and prosper in the year ahead.
Investment Watch is a quarterly publication produced by Morgans that delves into key insights for equity and economic strategy.
This publication covers
Economics - 'The Australian economy: a landscape of challenge and opportunity'
Asset Allocation - 'Structural shifts demand a portfolio rethink'
Equity Strategy - 'Diversification is key'
Banks - 'Fundamentals don't justify share price strength'
Industrials - 'Prepared for the uptick'
Travel - 'Selective opportunities'
Resources and Energy - 'Steady China and tight supply'
Consumer discretionary - 'Recovery underway'
Healthcare - 'Attractive, but with limited opportunities'
Infrastructure - 'Rising cost of capital but resilient operations'
Property - 'Structural tailwinds building'
It’s hard to believe that 2025 is already drawing to a close. As we enter the holiday season, we want to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude for your continued support and trust. This trust is the very foundation of everything we do. This time of year is a chance to reflect on the significant progress we’ve made. The entire team at Morgans is incredibly proud of the efforts and achievements from the past twelve months that reinforce our commitment to providing you with top-tier advice and opportunities. These achievements mean that Morgans continues to provide top-line advice and investment opportunities that benefit clients across our national branch network.
Morgans clients receive exclusive insights such as access to our latest Investment Watch publication. Contact us today to begin your journey with Morgans.
In recent days, several people have asked for my updated view on the Federal Reserve and the Fed funds rate, as well as the outlook for the Australian cash rate. I thought I’d walk through our model for the Fed funds rate and explain our approach to the RBA’s cash rate.
It’s fascinating to look at the history of the current tightening cycle. The Fed began from a much higher base than the RBA, and in this cycle, they reached a peak rate of 535 basis points, compared to the RBA’s peak of 435 basis points. For context, in the previous tightening cycle, the RBA reached a peak of 485 basis points.
The reason the RBA was more cautious this time around is largely due to an agreement between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the RBA. The goal was to implement rate increases that would not undo the employment gains made in the previous cycle. As a result, the RBA was far less aggressive in its approach to rate hikes.
This divergence in peak rates is important. Because the Australian cash rate peaked lower, the total room for rate cuts and the resulting stimulus to the economy is significantly smaller than in previous cycles.
The Fed, on the other hand, peaked at 535 basis points in August last year and began cutting rates shortly after. By the end of December, they had reduced the rate to 435 basis points, where it has remained since.
Recent U.S. labour market data shows a clear slowdown. Over the past 20 years, average annual employment growth in the U.S. has been around 1.6 percent, but this fell to 1.0 percent a few months ago and dropped further to 0.9 percent in the most recent data.
This suggests that while the Fed has successfully engineered a soft landing by slowing the economy, it now risks tipping into a hard landing if rates remain unchanged.
Fed Funds Rate Model Update
Our model for the Fed funds rate is based on three key variables: inflation, unemployment, and inflation expectations. While inflation has remained relatively stable, inflation expectations have declined significantly, alongside the drop in employment growth.
As a result, our updated model now estimates the Fed funds rate should be around 338 basis points, which is 92 basis points lower than the current rate of 435. This strongly suggests we are likely to see a 25 basis point cut at the Fed’s September 17 meeting.
There are two more Fed meetings scheduled for the remainder of the year, one in October and another on December 10. However, we will need to review the minutes from the September meeting before forming a view on whether further cuts are likely.
Australian Cash Rate Outlook
Turning to the Australian cash rate, as mentioned, the peak this cycle was lower than in the past, meaning the stimulatory effect of rate cuts is more limited.
We have already seen three rate cuts, and the key question now is whether there will be another at the RBA’s 4 November meeting.
This decision hinges entirely on the September quarter inflation data, which will be released on 29 October 2025.
The RBA’s strategy is guided by the concept of the real interest rate. Over the past 20 years, the average real rate has been around 0.85 percent. Assuming the RBA reaches its 2.5 percent inflation target, this implies a terminal cash rate of around 335 basis points. Once that level is reached, we expect it will mark the final rate cut of this cycle, unless inflation falls significantly further.
So, will we see a rate cut in November?
It all depends on the trimmed mean inflation figure for the September quarter. If it comes in at 2.5 percent or lower, we expect a rate cut. The June quarter trimmed mean was 2.7 percent, and the monthly July figure was 2.8 percent. If the September figure remains the same or rises, there will be no cut. Only a drop to 2.5 percent or below will trigger another move.
We will have a much clearer picture just a few days before Melbourne Cup Day.
The Wall Street Journal of 21 August 2025 carried an article which noted that Ether, a cryptocurrency long overshadowed by Bitcoin has surged in price in August.
The article noted that unlike Bitcoin, there was not a hard cap on Ether supply, but the digital token is increasingly used for transactions on Ethereum , a platform where developers build and operate applications that can be used to trade, lend and borrow digital currencies.
This is important because of the passage on 18 July 2025 of the GENIUS act which creates the first regulatory framework for Stablecoins. Stablecoins are US Dollar pegged digital tokens. The Act requires that Stablecoins , are to be to be fully backed by US Treasury Instruments or other US dollar assets .
The idea is that if Ethereum becomes part of the infrastructure of Stablecoins , Ether would then benefit from increased activity on the Ethereum platform.
Tokenized money market funds from Blackrock and other institutions already operate on the Ethereum network.
The Wall Street journal article goes on to note that activity on the Ethereum platform has already amounted to more than $US1.2 trillion this year ,compared with $960 million to the same period last year.
So today ,we thought it might be a good idea to try and work out what makes Bitcoin and Ether go up and down.
As Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman once said " Economists don't care if a Model works in practice ,as long as it works in theory" . Our theoretical model might be thought as a "Margin Lending Model" . In such a model variations in Bitcoin are a function of variation in the value of the US stock market .
As the US stock market rises, then the amount of cash at margin available to buy Bitcoin also rises .
The reverse occurs when the US stock market goes down .
Our model of Bitcoin based on this theory is shown in Figure 1 . We are surprised that this simple model explains 88% of monthly variation in Bitcoin since the beginning of 2019.
At the end of August our model told us that when Bitcoin was then valued at $US112,491 , that it was then overvalued by $US15,785 per token.
Modeling Ether is not so simple . Ether is a token but Ethereum is a business. this makes the price of Either sensitive to variations in conditions in the US Corporate Debt Market.
Taking that into account as well as stock market strength, gives us a model for Ether which is shown in figure 2.
This model explains 70.1% of monthly variation since the beginning of 2019. Our model tells us that at the end of August, Ether at $US 4,378per token was $US 560 above our model estimate of $US3,818.00 . Ether is moderately overvalued.
So neither Bitcoin nor Ether are cheap right now.
ETFs for each of Bitcoin and Ether are now available from your friendly local stockbroker .
But right now , our models tell us that neither of them is cheap!
There is more to what happened at Jackson Hole than just the speech by Jay Powell.
In my talk last week ,I said that our model of the Fed funds rate stood at 3.65%. This is actually 70 basis points lower than the actual level of 4.35%.
I also said that the Fed was successfully achieving a "soft landing" with employment growing at 1%. This was below the median level of employment growth since 2004 of 1.6%.
Still , as I listened to Jay Powell Speak , I noted a sense of concern in his voice when he said that "The July employment report released earlier this month slowed to an average pace of only 35,000 average per month over the past three months, down from 168,000 per month during 2024. This slowdown is much larger than assessed just a month ago."
My interpretation of this is that Chair Powell may be concerned that the "soft landing " achieved by the Fed may be in danger of turning into a "hard landing". This suggested a rate cut of 25 basis points by the Fed at the next meeting on 17-18 September.
This would leave the Fed Funds rate at 4.1%. This would mean that the Fed Funds rate would still be 45 basis points higher than our model estimate of 3.65%. Hence the Fed Funds rate would remain "modestly restrictive."
Dire Demography?
Jackson Hole was actually a Fed Strategy meeting with many speakers in addition to Jay Powell.
Two speakers who followed on the afternoon of his speech were Claudia Goldin, Professor at Harvard
and Chad Janis of Stanford Graduate Business School. They each gave foreboding presentations on the demography of developed economies.
Claudia Goldin spoke on "The Downside of Fertility". She noted that birth rates in the Developed World are now generally below replacement level. The Total Fertility rate is below 2 in France , the US and the UK.
It is dangerously low below 1.5 in Italy and Spain and below 1 in Korea. She observes that the age of first marriage of couples in the US is now 7 years later than it was in the 1960's. This reduces their child bearing years.
This paper was then followed by a discussion of it by Chad Janis of Stanford Graduate Business School. He noted that there is a profound difference between a future with a replacement rate of 2.2 kids per family , which he called the "Expanding Cosmos" with
• Growing population leading to a growing number of researchers, leading to rising living standards and Exponential growth in both living standards and population AND a replacement level of 1.9 kids per family which leads to
• Negative population growth , which he called "an Empty Planet " and the end of humanity
as numbers of researchers declines and economic growth ceases.
Of course this seems all very serious indeed . Perhaps what this really means ,is that if we want to save the world , we should just relax and start having a lot more fun!!
Today, we’re diving into how the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) sets interest rates as it nears its target of 2.5% inflation, and what happens when that target is reached. Back in 1898, Swedish economist Knut Wicksell published *Money, Interest and Commodity Prices*, introducing the concept of the natural rate of interest. This is the real interest rate that maintains price stability. Unlike Wicksell’s time, modern central banks, including the RBA, focus on stabilising the rate of inflation rather than the price level itself.
In Australia, the RBA aims to keep inflation at 2.5%. To achieve this, it sets a real interest rate, known as the neutral rate, which can only be determined in practice by observing what rate stabilises inflation at 2.5%. Looking at data from January 2000, we see significant fluctuations in Australia’s real cash rate, but over the long term, the average real rate has been 0.85%. This suggests that the RBA can maintain its 2.5% inflation target with an average real cash rate of 0.85%. This is a valuable insight as the RBA approaches this target.
As inflation nears 2.5%, we can estimate that the cash rate will settle at 2.5% (the inflation target) plus the long-term real rate of 0.85%, resulting in a cash rate of 3.35%. At the RBA meeting on Tuesday, 12 August, when the trimmed mean inflation rate for June had already dropped to 2.7%, the RBA reduced the real cash rate to 0.9%, resulting in a cash rate of 3.6%.
We anticipate that when the trimmed mean inflation for September falls to 2.5%, as expected, the cash rate will adjust to 2.5% plus the long-term real rate of 0.85%, bringing it to 3.35%. The September quarter trimmed mean will be published at the end of October, just before the RBA’s November meeting. We expect the RBA to hold the cash rate steady at its September meeting, but when it meets in November, with the trimmed mean likely at 2.5%, the cash rate is projected to fall to 3.35%.
In recent weeks, a number of media commentators have criticized Donald Trump's " One big Beautiful Bill " on the basis of a statement by the Congressional Budget Office that under existing legislation the bill adds $US 3.4 trillion to the US Budget deficit. They tend not to mention that this is because the existing law assumes that all the tax cuts made in 2017 by the first Trump Administration expire at the end of this year.
Let’s us look at what might have happened in January 2026 if the cuts in US corporate tax rates in Trumps first term were not renewed and extended in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Back in 2016 before the first Trump administration came to office in his first term, the US corporate tax rate was then 35%. In 2017 the Tax Cut and Jobs Act reduced the corporate tax rate to 21%. Because this bill was passed as a "Reconciliation Bill “, This meant it required only a simple majority of Senate votes to pass. This tax rate of 21% was due to expire in January 2026.
The One Big Beautiful Bill has made the expiring tax cuts permanent; this bill was signed into law on 4 July 2025. Now of course the same legislation also made a large number of individual tax cuts in the original 2017 bill permanent.
What would have happened if the bill had not passed. Let us construct what economists call a "Counterfactual"
Let’s just restrict ourselves to the case of what have happened in 2026 if the US corporate tax had risen to the prior rate of 35%.
This is an increase in the corporate tax rate of 14%. This increase would generate a sudden fall in US corporate after-tax earnings in January 2026 of 14%. What effect would that have on the level of the S&P 500?
The Price /Earnings Ratio of the S&P500 in July 2025 was 26.1.
Still the ten-year average Price/ Earnings Ratio for the S&P500 is only 18.99. Let’s say 19 times.
Should earnings per share have suddenly fallen by 14%, then the S&P 500 might have fallen by 14% multiplied by the short-term Price/ Earnings ratio.
This means a likely fall in the S&P500 of 37%.
As the market recovered to long term Price Earnings ratio of 19 this fall might then have ben be reduced to 27%.
Put simply, had the One Big, beautiful Bill not been passed, then in 2026 the US stock market might suddenly have fallen by 37% before then recovering to a fall of 27% .
The devastating effect on the US and indeed World economy might plausibly have caused a major recession.
On 9 June Kevin Hassert the Director of the National Economic Council said in a CBS interview with Margaret Brennan that if the bill did not pass US GDP would fall by 4% and 6-7 million Americans would lose their jobs.
The Passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill on 4 July thus avoided One Big Ugly Disaster.
On 7 July the AFR published a list of 37 Economists who had answered a poll on when the RBA would next cut rates. 32 of them thought that the RBA would cut on 8 July. Only 5 of them did not believe the RBA would cut on 8 July. I was one of them. The RBA did not cut.
So today I will talk about how I came to that decision. First, lets look at our model of official interest rates. Back in January 2015 I went to a presentation in San Franciso by Stan Fishcer . Stan was a celebrated economist who at that time was Ben Bernanke's deputy at the Federal Reserve. Stan gave a talk about how the Fed thought about interest rates.
Stan presented a model of R*. This is the real short rate of the Fed Funds Rate at which monetary policy is at equilibrium. Unemployment was shown as a most important variable. So was inflationary expectations.
This then logically lead to a model where the nominal level of the Fed funds rate was driven by Inflation, Inflationary expectations and unemployment. Unemployment was important because of its effect on future inflation. The lower the level of unemployment the higher the level of future inflation and the higher the level of the Fed funds rate. I tried the model and it worked. It worked not just for the Fed funds rate. It also worked in Australia for Australian cash rate.
Recently though I have found that while the model has continued to work to work for the Fed funds rate It has been not quite as good in modelling that Australian Cash Rate. I found the answer to this in a model of Australian inflation published by the RBA. The model showed Australian Inflation was not just caused by low unemployment, It was also caused by high import price rises. Import price inflation was more important in Australia because imports were a higher level of Australian GDP than was the case in the US.
This was important in Australia than in the US because Australian import price inflation was close to zero for the 2 years up to the end of 2024. Import prices rose sharply in the first quarter of 2025. What would happen in the second quarter of 2025 and how would it effect inflation I could not tell. The only thing I could do is wait for the Q2 inflation numbers to come out for Australia.
I thought that for this reason and other reasons the RBA would also wait for the Q2 inflation numbers to come out. There were other reasons as well. The Quarterly CPI was a more reliable measure of the CPI and was a better measure of services inflation than the monthly CPI. The result was that RBA did not move and voiced a preference for quarterly measure of inflation over monthly version.
Lets look again at R* or the real level of the Cash rate for Australia .When we look at the average real Cash rate since January 2000 we find an average number of 0.85%. At an inflation target of 2.5 % this suggests this suggest an equilibrium Cash rate of 3.35%
What will happen next? We think that the after the RBA meeting of 11 and 12 August the RBA will cut the Cash rate to 3.6%
We think that after the RBA meeting of 8 and 9 December the RBA will cut the Cash rate to 3.35%
Unless Quarterly inflation falls below 2.5% , the Cash rate will remain at 3.35% .
