14 Aug 2026 - Hedge Clippings | 14 August 2026

Hedge Clippings | 14 August 2026

The RBA held, as priced, but the sharper stories this week sit underneath it: gold's brutal round trip, a Chinese economy still stuck in deflation, and an open fight over who actually controls $4.5 trillion of Australian superannuation.

RBA holds at 4.35%: why 2 to 3% is a late-2027 story, and why the board just named an unresolved war as the reason

The RBA held at 4.35% for a second consecutive meeting on 11 August, unanimously. Bullock was clear this hold differs in character from June's wait-and-see call, this one came after Q2 data confirmed inflation running below the RBA's own forecasts. She still named the Middle East explicitly as an upside risk, and the timing proved apt: the interim Hormuz shipping arrangement that had pushed Brent into the high $70s in late July collapsed within days, Iran's Revolutionary Guards refusing to reopen the strait until the US lifts its naval blockade. Brent settled near $89 on decision day, up over 6% for the week, and the RBA's statement noted fuel pass-through "is adding directly to inflation." On the board's own numbers this is an eighteen-month problem: trimmed mean stays above 3% until mid-2027, and headline inflation doesn't reach the 2.5% midpoint until late 2027.

The RBA is now running an explicit eighteen month timeline to target and openly naming an unresolved war as the reason it can't commit to more certainty. Every Hormuz headline is now effectively Australian monetary policy news.

US CPI cools for a second month, but the number that matters is negative: wages

US headline CPI rose 0.1% in July, easing the annual rate to 3.4%. Core CPI eased to 2.5%, a five-month low, both in line with consensus. Shelter, the most stubborn line item all year, rose just 0.1%, while gasoline fell 2.9% for the month despite remaining up 24.6% annually. The more uncomfortable number sits beneath the headline: average hourly earnings growth of 3.2% is now running below CPI, real wages have gone backwards for four consecutive months. Navy Federal's Heather Long called this "the key issue" for middle and lower income households. The Fed doesn't meet again until 16 September, and this in-line print removes any near-term pressure to act.

Australia and the US are running near-identical scripts: gradual disinflation, a central bank in no hurry to move, and a real economy still absorbing the lagged cost of the price level itself, not just its rate of change.

Canberra wants your super fund to think like a sovereign wealth fund. The industry's answer, so far, is no.

At the AFR's Superannuation Lending Roundtable, Prime Minister Albanese told a room of major fund and bank CEOs there was "real potential" to treat the country's $4.5 trillion superannuation pool as "a national asset," pushing funds toward more domestic business lending and framing offshore super investment as "hard money to provide soft power." The response was immediate: Westpac chief executive Anthony Miller told the Prime Minister directly to "not touch the super complex, don't direct it, don't tell it where to go." UniSuper's Peter Pearce separately noted Australia's private credit market is simply too small to absorb much more domestic capital without compromising diversification, the same structural constraint our own Income and Credit review identifies. The debate remains unresolved, and it now sits alongside a sharper enforcement signal: ASIC posted a record $830 million in civil penalties for FY2025-26, an eightfold increase on the prior year, with member services failures and misleading conduct as explicit ongoing priorities.

A trustee's sole legal duty is members' best financial interests, not national economic objectives. Any real move toward directed lending needs a mandate change, not a roundtable request, and trustees who bend to informal pressure without one are taking on genuine legal risk.

The PM, a podcast, and Japanese melons

Anthony Albanese's July appearance on Nikki Osborne's Bush Deep podcast is still making headlines. First came an apology over a "shag, marry, date" segment involving Kylie Minogue. Now a second clip has resurfaced, with Albanese criticised for embracing a suggestive joke about a pair of melons gifted by Japan's female prime minister. Diplomacy, apparently, is easier than podcasting, particularly over a bottle of whiskey.

Australian Equities and Real Assets: two more chapters of the FY2026 review, live now

Includes 368 funds across five peer groups. The headline findings: 65% of Australian large cap funds finished below the ASX 200, while Infrastructure returned +12.45% against just +0.99% for Property. Across identical infrastructure portfolios, hedged classes outperformed their unhedged twins by an average +7.45%, making currency positioning one of the year's biggest differentiators. Full detail, fund by fund, in the reports.

Australian Equities Peer Group Review

Real Assets Review - Property & Infrastructure

News | Insights

New Funds on FundMonitors.com

Expert Analysis of the RBA's Aug 11 Rate Decision

Australian Secure Capital Fund - Property Update

July 2026 Performance News

Airlie Australian Share Fund Active ETF (ASX:AASF)

Bennelong Concentrated Australian Equities Fund

Glenmore Australian Equities Fund

Seed Funds Management Financial Income Fund - Incl Franking

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