Australian inflation rose to 4.0% a day after the rate rise to 4.60%, but underlying inflation held at 3.6%

Australian consumer prices rose 4.0% in the year to August, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday, up from 3.5% in July and 0.1 percentage points below the 4.1% economists had expected. The figures arrived a day after the Reserve Bank raised its cash rate, the rate on overnight loans between banks, by 25 basis points to 4.60%, the highest since 2011.

The trimmed mean, the measure the Bank uses to judge underlying inflation, was unchanged at 3.6% for a third month and matched forecasts. It is still above the Bank's target of 2% to 3%. Cash-rate futures put the chance of another increase at the meeting on Tuesday, November 3, at about 20%. David Scutt of Forex.com said that was down from 44% a week earlier.

By Wednesday afternoon in Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 was up 1.1%, after being slightly lower before the figures.

"Inflation is too high and has been driven by domestic capacity pressures," Governor Michele Bullock said on Tuesday.

"All of the increase in annual headline inflation was from a combination of higher fuel costs and the unwinding of last year's energy rebates," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday.

Chalmers was talking about the increase in the headline rate. Bullock was talking about why inflation sits above the target at all, and she said the effect of the Middle East conflict came on top of pressures already inside the economy. Tuesday's decision, the fourth rise this year, was unanimous. The Board said the Middle East conflict had broadened, that global energy prices were much higher than it had assumed in August, and that it would raise the cash rate further if needed. The trimmed mean did not move.

The trimmed mean drops the largest price rises and falls, and the items that drop out change from month to month. In August, the bureau said, fuel and electricity were both excluded, and they were the main reason the headline rate stood above the trimmed mean. Fuel prices rose 14.8% in August. Rachael McCririck, the bureau's head of price statistics, said that came from higher world oil prices and the end of the remaining federal relief on the fuel tax. Electricity was flat in August but 13.2% higher than a year earlier, Chalmers said, partly because of the timing of those rebates. Housing, which includes electricity, was the largest contributor to annual inflation in August.

The meetings were fixed long before this release. Bullock said they are set 18 months to two years in advance, and that when the bureau changes its date, it is not ideal, and there was not much the Bank could do.

Abhijit Surya, senior Asia-Pacific economist at Capital Economics, said the run of rate rises was likely finished, because underlying inflation had not strengthened further. Scutt said the trimmed mean was still running at a 4.12% annual rate over three months, and that this pace kept another rise firmly in view.

ANZ Research still saw a November rise, to 4.85%, as more likely than not. Russel Chesler, VanEck's head of investments and capital markets, said a December rise was increasingly likely given Wednesday's figures.

The next test of those calls is the September inflation figures on Wednesday, October 28, ahead of the Board's decision on Tuesday, November 3.