The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is about to announce its final interest rate decision for 2017. Like the 10 meetings before it, the RBA will almost certainly keep the cash rate steady at 1.5%, meaning all attention yet again will be on the content of its December monetary policy statement. And given the data flow seen since it last met on November 7, even that’s likely to be fairly similar with confidence towards the business sector and labour market likely to be offset by continued uncertainty on the outlook for household consumption. Here’s the state of play. • No one expects that interest rates will change ... (full story)