Finance & Business World

Aqua America Inc. posted nearly flat income on a revenue increase in the fourth quarter, as earnings per share met analysts’ estimates and revenue did not.

The Bryn Mawr, Pa.-based water and wastewater utility holding company earned $26.7 million, or 20 cents per fully diluted share, in the quarter. The average estimate of eight analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was that it would earn 20 cents per share in the quarter. It earned $25.7 million, or 19 cents per fully diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Aqua America’s revenue in the quarter was $167.9 million, up from $159.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2008. The average revenue estimate of six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was $176 cash advance america.2 million.

In all 2009, the company earned $104.4 million, or 77 cents per fully diluted share, on revenue of $670.5 million. All the figures were increases from 2008, when Aqua America (NYSE:WTR) earned $97.9 million, or 73 cents per share, on revenue of $627 million.

Nicholas DeBenedictis, the company’s chairman and CEO, said in Aqua America’s earnings press release that he expected its earnings to continue to rebound in 2010, supported by an improving economy, a return to normal weather patterns and the successful completion of rate cases it has pending.

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The Washington Convention and Sports Authority filed its own lawsuit in the dispute over a planned convention center hotel on Thursday, alleging that extortion attempts and abuse of the legal process by a local developer have paralyzed the authority’s attempt to build a convention center hotel.

Filed in D.C. Superior Court, the suit claims that Chevy Chase-based developer The JBG Cos. and two of its principals “unlawfully attempted to extort concessions” from a unit of Marriott International Inc. in negotiations over an unrelated property, the Washington Wardman Park Marriott.

JBG and CIM Group of Hollywood, Calif. are co-owners of Wardman Park and Marriott alleged in its own suit, filed Jan. 14, that JBG Managing Partner Ben Jacobs and Chief Development Officer Kenneth Finkelstein filed the suit only after trying to extract concessions from Marriot to build new housing at Wardman Park. The convention center authority, the claim reads, “has now learned that these suits have not been filed to redress legitimate grievances, but instead have been instituted by the defendants as a way of extracting concessions in unrelated business dealings defendants have with Marriott International Inc.”

The authority, the city and developers Capstone Development LLC and Quadrangle Development Corp fast cash. plan a 1,167-room Marriott Marquis for Ninth Street NW that convention planners believe can make D.C. a player for major shows and tourism dollars.

But JBG’s suit against the city, for what the developer claims was an unfair procurement process, prevents the convention center authority from issuing bonds for the project, part of more a more than $200 million package the city is providing for the project.

Greg O’Dell, president and CEO of the convention center authority, issued a statement saying, “We intend to be aggressive in protecting the authority’s interest to make this shovel-ready headquarters hotel project a reality.”

In its suit, JBG alleged that D.C. unfairly and illegally provided a sweetheart deal to Marriott and its development partners. However, the authority attributed the dispute to JBG having purchased the Wardman Park “at the height of the real estate boom, and having seen values and profits plummet in the years since, sought in July to reduce their losses at Wardman Park by seeking concessions from Marriott in connection with Marriott’s management agreement for the Wardman Park.”

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Norway must remove government stimulus or risk faster interest-rate increases that would strengthen the krone and stifle an export recovery, Finance Minister Sigbjoern Johnsen said.

“My main task is to try to prevent fiscal policy putting an extra burden on the krone,” Johnsen, named to the post last month, said in a Nov. 20 interview in Oslo. “The extraordinary efforts of the fiscal policy should be phased out.”

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor-led government, which was re-elected in September, will breach expenditure guidelines for a second consecutive year after using a record amount of the nation’s $440 billion oil wealth to revive the economy in 2009. The pre-election pledge to spend more came after the world’s sixth-biggest oil exporter, which boasts Europe’s lowest unemployment rate, had already emerged from recession in the second quarter.

Norway’s recovery trajectory has forced interest rates higher. Norges Bank on Oct. 28 became the first rate-setter in Europe to lift borrowing costs since the height of the global slump. Governor Svein Gjedrem increased the deposit rate by a quarter point to 1.5 percent and his bank predicts the rate will average 1.75 percent this year and 2.25 percent in 2010, rising to an average of 4.25 percent by 2012.

“If we spend too much money” it would lead “to a faster increase in interest rates and this could have an impact on the exchange rate and on the competitiveness of our businesses,” Johnsen said.

Krone Best Performer

The prospect of higher rates has helped the krone, making it the best performer of the 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg since the end of June. The krone is up 7.3 percent against the euro and 14 percent against the dollar in the period.

That’s cutting into profits at manufacturers like Norsk Hydro ASA, Europe’s second-largest aluminum producer. For every krone the Norwegian currency strengthens against the dollar, based on an exchange rate of 5 instant payday loan.5 kroner, Norsk Hydro’s earnings before interest and tax would be cut by 1.6 billion kroner ($282 million), according to its third-quarter presentation.

Norway’s mainland economy, which excludes oil, gas and shipping, will grow 2.8 percent next year and 3.2 percent in 2011, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

OECD Warning

The government’s spending plans have attracted criticism from the Paris-based organization, which on Nov. 19 warned of the need for “strong fiscal consolidation” and said that “sizeable” policy tightening is “desirable” after a “tremendous” stimulus.

Johnsen, who served as finance minister under Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland from 1990 to 1996, faces the challenge of reining in public spending while keeping his party’s election pledge to support welfare and employment.

Norway, which is also the world’s second biggest natural gas exporter, puts most of its petroleum revenue in a sovereign wealth fund established during Johnsen’s first term in office.

The Government Pension Fund - Global, which started to invest Norway’s oil wealth in 1996, was created to avoid stoking inflation by preventing oil and gas income from seeping through to consumption. Fiscal spending guidelines limit the use of oil money to plug budget deficits to 4 percent of the fund.

Johnsen isn’t promising a sudden shift in his government’s stance.

The return to the spending rule “must be gradual,” Johnsen said. “I will try what I can in order to get back on the 4 percent path during this period. But it is going to be difficult.”

Editors: Chris Kirkham, Tasneem Brogger.

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French and Italian industrial output surged in August, fueled by government incentives to buy new cars, adding to signs that stimulus spending is helping the euro-region economy emerge from its worst recession in 60 years.

French output rose 1.8 percent, from July, dwarfing the 0.3 percent median forecast by 22 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Italian production jumped 7 percent in August, the biggest monthly increase in at least 20 years.

The gains in manufacturing in France and Italy, which account for more than a third of the euro-region economy, provide further evidence that the euro region will expand in the three months through September, after five quarters of contraction. European manufacturing also grew more than initially estimated in September, a report showed this week.

“Manufacturing activity will finally stop being a drag on growth in third quarter,” said Annalisa Piazza, an economist at Newedge Group in London. “Today’s data, coupled with the upswing in German industrial production in August, will lead to an upswing in euro-zone output figures in August of around 3 percent month on month, much stronger than previously anticipated.”

The euro-area economy barely contracted in the second quarter as Germany and France, the region’s largest economies, returned to growth. The euro area will expand 0.3 percent in 2010, the International Monetary Fund said on Oct. 1, when it trimmed its estimate for this year’s contraction to 4.2 percent.

Car Incentives

Manufacturing in both France and Italy has been propped up by government stimulus measures, including a payment of 1,000 euros ($1,473) for buyers who trade in older cars for less- polluting models. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government intends to extend the program into next year, though it will be scaled back and Italy is also considering an extension overnight pay day loans.

French car production surged 19 percent in August from the previous month, while in Italy output of motor vehicles, including cars and trucks, gained 12.9 percent, today’s reports said.

Manufacturing “is mainly benefiting from the car-incentive schemes, although output of other manufactured products is also rising,” said Joost Beaumont, an economist at Fortis Bank Nederland. This suggests “that the pickup in world trade and the turn in the inventory cycle are also leaving their mark.”

Even with the gains in production and demand, joblessness is still rising across the EU. With some government-stimulus measures starting to expire and the euro’s 18-percent gain against the dollar since February weighing on exports, policy makers including European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet have warned the economic pickup may be uneven.

Exit Strategies

Trichet has also called on governments to figure out how to withdraw the billions of euros of stimulus measures used to combat the worst recession in 60 years to avoid fueling inflation as growth begins to accelerate. Trichet yesterday demanded that lawmakers execute “ambitious” plans to reverse the region’s largest budget deficit since the euro began trading in 1999 “as soon as possible and at the latest when the recovery takes hold.”

Failure by politicians to devise a plan and then carry it out may fuel debt and inflation, forcing the Frankfurt-based ECB to raise interest rates faster in the recovery, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Capital.

The ECB left its benchmark rate unchanged yesterday at a record low 1 percent.

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European Union leaders said the Group of 20 nations should agree on binding rules backed by national sanctions to curb bank bonuses, a week before a summit of the top industrial and emerging nations in Pittsburgh.

The EU agreement on the need for action failed to include details of how such curbs would be achieved, leaving any details to be negotiated at the G-20 summit. Leaders of the 27 EU states said voters would react with anger if bankers were allowed to award themselves large bonuses while relying on public money for their survival.

“The bonus bubble burst,” said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, after chairing the meeting in Brussels late yesterday. “We have agreed to say that ‘enough is enough’ and that we need to move away from the current culture of compensation based on short-term performance.”

Leaders agreed that bonuses should be tied to a bank’s performance and that guaranteed bonuses should be avoided. The “major part” of bonuses should be deferred and “could be canceled in case of a negative development in the bank’s performance.”

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said that the U.S. and the U.K. don’t like the idea of imposing ceilings on bank bonuses.

‘Means Nothing’

“The British have problems with it, likewise the Americans,” Juncker was quoted as saying by Agence France- Presse. “So we have agreed on this formula which means nothing, that we are going to study the question.”

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said officials were still negotiating over whether bonuses should be kept to a proportion of revenue instead of profits. He said a “limitation on individual bonuses” was also being discussed.

“People have put forward a number of proposals,” Brown said. “What we are looking for are common international rules that can suit every country with the minimum of interference and a maximum of impact.”

Asked whether Europe would go it alone if the G-20 failed to agree on curbing bonuses, European Commission President Jose Barroso said the EU’s executive arm has already “put on the table” some “precise rules on bonuses.”

These are “not only recommendations but legally binding proposals,” Barroso said. “So whatever the result of Pittsburgh, the commission position is: ‘yes,’ we should adopt in Europe some of these rules.”

Difficulties

Yet differences over bonuses highlight the difficulties the world’s leading industrialized and emerging economies face as they seek agreement on measures to prevent a recurrence of the worst financial and economic crisis since World War II.

Michael Froman, a deputy assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama said two days ago that the U.S. is reluctant “to set individual compensation levels.”

Also, even though Brown has joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy this month in calling for G-20 leaders to impose binding global rules on bonuses, and back “sanctions” for banks that refuse to cooperate, other differences remain.

The U.K. has rejected signing up to proposals that would have any national government set a cap on bonuses, suggesting countries will implement any agreement in different ways.

Rejecting Cap

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling earlier this month signed up to a G-20 pledge to ask regulators to study ways of tying a bank’s bonus pool to regular wages, rejecting a cap for individual firms.

“We need a cap for the bonuses as part of your income, or part of the revenue of the company” that a person is working for, Reinfeldt said. “We, of course, know that the United States is very often against this idea.”

Merkel said bonus payment limits are one of her top goals for the G-20 summit.

“I’m optimistic that we can make clear that bonus payments must be tied to long-term profitability,” Merkel said, adding that such payments can’t be granted when companies make losses.

Europe and the U.S. may also struggle to reconcile their views on capital requirements for banks. BNP Paribas SA Chief Executive Officer Baudouin Prot said the “very high” capital ratios proposed by the U.S. would put French and other European lenders at a disadvantage to their U.S. competitors.

Raise Capital Rules

Sarkozy said that imposing tougher requirements on banks to maintain capital reserves would help curb bonuses.

“The idea of raising capital requirements in proportion with speculative activities, which are generating these so shocking bonuses, seems a more efficient capping method,” Sarkozy said

At a preparatory meeting of European finance ministers and central bank governors in London on Sept. 5, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the G-20 should amend and enact the so-called Basel II rules before discussing any new rules.

Leaders of advanced and emerging economies will discuss steps to regulate markets, curb executive pay and raise capital requirements for banks at the Sept. 24-25 summit in Pittsburgh, the latest bid to coordinate the global response to the crisis.

Merkel, speaking in Frankfurt yesterday, urged G-20 members to agree “that no financial center, no financial institution and no financial product remains unregulated.” Capital requirements must be designed to limit banks’ size, she said.

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The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should maintain existing output quotas and improve compliance when the 12-member group meets today, the group’s production-monitoring committee recommended.

“We need more compliance” with existing production targets, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed al-Abdullah al-Sabah told reporters in Vienna. “I don’t foresee any cut,” he said, when asked at what price level the group might consider a further supply reduction.

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, who represents OPEC’s biggest and most influential producer, said current oil prices are “good for everybody, consumers, producers,” adding to comments from other members of the group pointing to no change in output. All 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast OPEC will leave production quotas unchanged for a third time at today’s meeting.

Oil rallied from a low of $32.70 in January to peak this year at $75 a barrel on Aug. 25. Crude for October delivery was trading at $71.07 on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 10:49 a.m. in Singapore. Al-Sabah said current prices are “OK” and said a supply cutback is unlikely in the near future even though the market is “oversupplied.”

OPEC’s Ministerial Monitoring Committee met for an hour yesterday evening at the group’s Vienna headquarters to review data on OPEC oil supply and demand. The MMC, comprising officials from Iran, Nigeria and Kuwait, often recommends a course of action for the full meeting of OPEC ministers, which convenes at 9:30 p.m. local time, after dark because the summit falls in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Compliance Percentage

The MMC also recommended no change in quotas when it met before OPEC’s May meeting. OPEC Secretary General Abdalla El- Badri and Iran’s incoming Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi both left the meeting without commenting.

The group agreed late last year to cut production targets by 4.2 million barrels a day after prices crashed more than $100 a barrel from a record of $147.27 in July 2008.

The 11 OPEC members bound by quotas are currently complying with about 68 percent of their promised cutbacks, Al-Sabah said, adding that “75 percent would be fine free credit scores.”

Those members, all except Iraq, pumped 26.055 million barrels a day in August, according to estimates in a Bloomberg survey, which indicates quota compliance of about 71 percent. Only Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar pumped less than their target. Iran, Angola and Venezuela are the biggest quota busters.

Non-OPEC Criticized

Qatari Energy Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, while backing no change to OPEC’s targets, criticized the lack of support from non-member producers such as Russia.

“We heard a lot of oral support, we would like to see physical support,” from non-OPEC suppliers, Al-Attiyah said as he arrived in Vienna yesterday.

Russia’s oil exports are surpassing those of Saudi Arabia for the first time since the Soviet Union’s collapse as Prime Minister Vladimer Putin exploits OPEC cuts to gain market share.

Exports of crude and refined products from Russia rose to about 7.4 million barrels a day in the second quarter, according to Energy Ministry data. Saudi shipments fell to about 7 million barrels a day, International Energy Agency estimates of output and domestic demand showed.

Investors had expected Russian supplies to decline this year after Putin’s deputy, Igor Sechin, told the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in December that his government was ready to limit production to support prices. Instead, the country is providing tax breaks for new fields in Siberia. OAO Rosneft, OAO Lukoil and BP Plc’s Russian venture TNK-BP pumped more to take advantage of a 59 percent gain in prices so far this year.

The extra barrels may undermine OPEC efforts to reduce inventories and keep members from exceeding their quotas after the group meets in Vienna tomorrow. Oil will fall 4.7 percent from the average so far this quarter to $64.50 a barrel in the third, according to the median of 34 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

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The services sector shrank again in August, but an index measuring activity was at its highest in nearly a year, according to an industry report released Thursday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 48.4 in August from 46.4 in July. That was slightly above the 48 median forecast of 70 economists surveyed by Reuters.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector. The last time the index was at the 50 mark was September 2008 best auto loan rates.

The index’s business activity component rose to 51.3, up from 46.1 in July. The August reading was its first above 50 since last September.

The services sector represents about 80% of U.S. economic activity and includes businesses such as banks, airlines, hotels and restaurants. 

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China’s central bank may be forced to tighten its “loose” monetary policy in the second quarter of 2010 when inflation is expected to reach 4 percent, according to Citigroup Inc.

“China worries about inflation more than asset market bubbles,” Shen Minggao, Citigroup’s chief economist for the Greater China region, said in an interview in Hong Kong yesterday. Rising prices may spook low-to-medium income groups and threaten social stability, he added.

The People’s Bank of China may issue bills to soak up cash or raise its capital reserve ratio when inflation exceeds the government’s 4 percent target, Shen said. Consumer prices in Asia’s second-largest economy, which declined for a sixth straight month in July, may start to increase again in the fourth quarter, he said.

In 2008, the Chinese central bank slashed interest rates and reserve requirements to help shield the economy from the global recession business card. Premier Wen Jiabao also unveiled a 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package to buoy growth.

China’s top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, on Aug. 27 denied the country faces a sharp and sustained increase in prices. The agency called on local governments to “strengthen price monitoring” on consumer goods.

Consumer prices in China plunged 1.8 percent in July from a year earlier, the biggest decline since 1999. The key one-year lending rate is 5.31 percent and the nation’s biggest banks are required to set aside 15.5 percent of their deposits as reserves.

Citigroup’s Shen expected consumer prices to rise 3.2 percent next year. The median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News is for a 2.7 percent increase in 2010.

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The Philippine central bank will probably end its longest series of interest-rate cuts since at least 2002 as the global economy recovers.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will hold its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 4 percent today, according to 13 of 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Two expect a quarter-point cut.

A nascent recovery from the worldwide recession has increased prospects of a revival in inflation, prompting countries from Thailand to South Korea to pause after slashing borrowing costs to revive growth. The Philippines will aim for a “controlled shift in the direction of our policy stance,” Governor Amando Tetangco said Aug. 11.

“Inflation has bottomed out already and will start to go up,” said Luz Lorenzo, an economist at ATR-Kim Eng Securities Inc. in Manila. “Commodity prices are the bigger risk as economies recover.”

Easing inflation allowed the Philippine central bank to cut its key interest rate by 2 percentage points from mid-December to July to bolster growth as exports collapsed. Consumer-price gains slowed to a 22-year low of 0.2 percent in July.

“Disinflationary forces” will dissipate as the year progresses, Tetangco said July 29. The price of oil, which in the Philippines is almost all imported, has risen about 50 percent this year.

Growth Outlook

The Philippines’ $167 billion economy expanded 0.4 percent in the first quarter, the weakest pace in a decade. The government, which will report second-quarter gross domestic product data on Aug. 27, has said it expects growth to improve in the coming quarters.

“I wouldn’t encourage them to do more rate cuts,” Economic Planning Director Dennis Arroyo told reporters in Manila today, even as he said the economy may have contracted 0 car insurance quotes.1 percent last quarter. Government spending should “kick in” and third-quarter data indicate an “upswing,” he said.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 1.5 percent to 2,720.18 at the close of trading at noon, contributing to a 4.6 percent decline for the week, the biggest drop in nine weeks. Tomorrow is a holiday in the Philippines.

Asian nations from Taiwan to Malaysia have reported smaller declines in exports as the world recovers from its worst slump since the Great Depression. China’s economy grew 7.9 percent last quarter from a year ago, while Singapore’s expanded an annualized 20.7 percent from the previous three months.

Completed Easing

The Bank of Korea kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 2 percent for a sixth month last week after its economy expanded at the fastest pace since 2003 in the second quarter. Australia’s central bank this month kept borrowing costs unchanged for a fourth time.

“Like other central banks across the region, Bangko Sentral has likely completed its easing cycle,” said David Cohen, an economist with Action Economics in Singapore. “With inflation subdued, they should remain patient, maintaining interest rates steady into next year, before likely raising rates around mid-2010.”

Bangko Sentral will likely keep borrowing costs at 4 percent for six months to a year, ATR-Kim Eng’s Lorenzo said.

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Australia’s central bank Governor Glenn Stevens may not wait for signs that unemployment has peaked before raising borrowing costs from a half-century low.

“I’ve never seen written down or heard in discussion some rule of thumb that says we wait until unemployment is peaking before we lift the cash rate,” Stevens said in Sydney yesterday. “Hopefully” policy makers will find “a suitably timely way of returning to normal when the right time for that comes.”

Australian stocks and the currency rose after Stevens also said the economy may rebound faster than the central bank forecast six months ago as consumer and business confidence surges. Traders boosted bets on the size of future interest-rate increases.

Stevens “basically said he’s not going to wait for unemployment to peak before raising rates,” said Rory Robertson, an economist at Macquarie Group Ltd. in Sydney. “That’s a fairly controversial thing for him to say,” and reflects the fact “the world is a much brighter place than it was three months ago.”

In the past two decades policy makers have never lifted borrowing costs at a time of rising unemployment, Robertson said.

Investors forecast the overnight cash rate target will be 112 basis points higher in a year, a Credit Suisse Group AG index based on swaps trading showed at 10:16 a.m. in Sydney. Before Stevens’ speech, they tipped 98 basis points of gains. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Currency, Stocks

The Australian dollar rose yesterday after the speech to 83.38 U.S. cents, the highest in ten months. The currency traded at 82.45 cents as of 10:23 a.m. in Sydney.

Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index of stocks rose 0.7 percent yesterday as shares of retailers including Billabong International Ltd. jumped following Stevens’ remarks. The world’s largest publicly traded surfwear maker advanced 5.5 percent and Harvey Norman Holdings Ltd., the nation’s biggest electronics retailer, gained 1.5 percent. The index was down 0.3 percent today.

It appears “that the downturn we are having may turn out not to be one of the more serious ones of the post-War era, in contrast to the experiences of so many other countries,” the Reserve Bank chief told a function organized by the Australian Business Economists low fee payday loans.

“We can much more easily imagine upside risks to the outlook, to balance out the downside ones, than was the case six month ago.”

‘Not Beholden’

The government forecast in May that the jobless rate, which rose to 5.8 percent in June, will hit 8.5 percent in a year. The central bank, which also forecast in May that unemployment will climb without specifying a rate, is due to revise its economic predictions next month.

Stevens is saying “that he’s not going to be beholden to one particular variable if the weight of evidence is in the other direction,” said Joshua Williamson, a senior economist at Citigroup Inc. in Sydney.

“The downturn has been much less acute than feared, we’ve had a mountain of monetary and fiscal policy” and Stevens has “to make policy that’s relevant now and not based on some historical artifact.”

The governor left the benchmark overnight cash rate target at 3 percent on July 7 for a third month amid evidence a record 4.25 percentage points of cuts between September and April and A$12 billion ($9.9 billion) of government cash handouts to low and middle-income earners helped the nation skirt a recession.

‘Glass Half Full’

Signs of a rebound in Australia’s economy, which unexpectedly grew 0.4 percent in the first quarter after shrinking 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, may prompt the central bank to revise its forecast for gross domestic product on Aug. 7.

In May, the bank predicted GDP would contract 1 percent this year before expanding 2 percent in 2010.

“It is becoming more common for Australians to see the glass as half full than as half empty,” Stevens said yesterday.

Stevens’ comment that there is no rule that the bank can’t raise rates before the unemployment rate peaks “makes us wary that he is preparing to break from convention,” said Felicity Emmett, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Sydney. “We have to be open to the Reserve Bank tightening.”

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