Michael Janda

Even then, though, they might allow more time to see what the picture is developing and which of their scenarios is coming to pass.

And that could be part of this, as I said, stitching time to save nine strategy.

Let's do three sharp rate hikes up front, clamp down on inflation, watch the economy slow, and then hope that we don't have to go any further.

The market still thinks there's another one.

Some banks think there's another two rate hikes in the offing.

We'll get some more info from the RBA governor, Michelle Bullock, but she rarely gives away too much more than what's in the statement.

I think even since we've been sitting here, some of the big banks already have.

I believe Macquarie has passed it on and I would expect all the big four banks would pass it on in full and most of the smaller ones, as they have done with the two previous rate hikes.

What surprised me is that eight board members voted in favour of the rate hike and only one against after having such a close decision last time.

And despite the war, I can't quite see what's changed so much to swing three board members to suddenly thinking a third rate hike

in a row is a good idea when they weren't even sure that a second one was a great idea.

And I'm the ABC News Business Editor, Michael Yander.

In absolute terms, by itself, this isn't the end of the world.

We're talking maybe up to about 2 million barrels a day that was getting out mainly to China, which is the biggest customer of Iranian oil.

But what it signals could be disastrous because if Iran resists this US blockade of its ports by, for instance, trying to sink and maybe successfully sinking or damaging a US warship, killing or injuring US military personnel, perhaps by firing more missiles, drones, et cetera, across the region and further damaging oil and gas infrastructure, that's what markets are really worried about the retaliation.

And then we could see oil prices spike well above even the current 7% or 8% increase we've seen this morning.

So it's not just the barrels of oil that are now being locked in from Iran, but it's the potential for this conflict to escalate into Iran.

from the ceasefire into a hot war.

I mean, who knows?

I would have thought markets would be down a lot more this morning on the news of this blockade because this obviously came out after Wall Street had closed on Friday US time.