Considerable rallies on currency markets

However his comments did little to dent the decline in bond yields.

Yields were already falling prior to his remarks with the US two-year falling 41 basis points over the week, while the 10-year finished the week down 27 basis points.

A rate cut by March is now priced in at 60 per cent, compared to just 20pc a week ago, with 134 basis points of cuts priced over 2024.

In Australia, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) indicator for October came at 4.9pc from 5.6pc, which was below the consensus of 5.2pc, building on the momentum for the decreasing inflation rate.

The limitation with the data is that October is the first month which has reasonable coverage of goods prices, but few updated on the services component which is important in gauging price pressures, and where the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) sees the most concern.

The CPI data was clearly enough for the RBA to announce the cash rate will remain unchanged at 4.35pc in their last meeting of 2023, held on Tuesday this week.

The decision matched economists' hold expectations.

RBA Governor Michelle Bullock highlighted the data concerns in the post meeting statement saying "the monthly CPI indicator for October suggested that inflation is continuing to moderate, driven by the goods sector; the inflation update did not, however, provide much more information on services inflation."

Currency markets last week saw considerable rallies by the New Zealand Dollar, rising 2.22pc against the US dollar, along with the Yen rising 1.75pc.

The Australian dollar rose 1.37pc and the British pound was up 0.85pc.

In commodity markets, Brent Crude closed at a weekly low of $79.10 per barrel with WTI falling below US$75.

US oil production hit a record high in September with output exceeding 13m barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

The US is continuing to increase production as OPEC+ countries continue to reduce supply to support higher prices.