Both investors and homeowners have groaned this year as the Reserve Bank of Australia increased its cash rate like there's no tomorrow.
Interest rates headed north 175 basis points over just three months, which is a nose-bleeding velocity considering it didn't go up for more than 11 years before that.
Outside of mining, ASX shares have struggled in the face of this, with higher costs of borrowing weighing down future earnings prospects of businesses and reducing consumer demand.
Home loan holders have obviously suffered from higher repayments, with some facing a rude shock as their fixed rate terms end.
Good luck if you have both a mortgage and a stock portfolio!
If all this action is depressing, consider this. The RBA board has its next meeting coming up in just four days.
Are you ready for another half-percentage point?
On Tuesday, the central bank will decide yet again whether its cash rate should increase, decrease or remain the same.
And unfortunately for those aforementioned investors and homeowners, inflation remains stubbornly high.
The US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell perhaps stole RBA governor Phillip Lowe's thunder last weekend when he told everyone in no uncertain terms that rates would keep heading higher to permanently stamp out rampant inflation.
Therefore, experts are certain the cash rate in Australia will rise on Tuesday.
"With demand still strong in the Australian economy, we look for the RBA to lift the cash rate by 50 basis points in September to 2.35%, just below estimates of the neutral cash rate," said Janus Henderson investment strategist Frank Uhlenbruch.
"Central bank inflation fighting narratives have become more urgent and hawkish."
While an argument could be made that the inflation problem is far worse in the US than here, Lowe can't afford to leave too large a gap between the RBA and US Fed rates.
If he doesn't do that then the Australian dollar would devalue too much.
What is the market pricing in?
The markets agree with Uhlenbruch.
The ASX 30-Day Interbank Cash Rate Futures was trading at 97.82 on Wednesday, indicating an 83% expectation of a 50-basis point hike on Tuesday.
Looking further ahead, the market is now forecasting that interest rates will remain permanently elevated, factoring for a 3.85% cash rate in the middle of next year.
Although Uhlenbruch doesn't agree with this pessimism.
"This seems implausible to us as it assumes that one of the biggest and fastest tightening cycles in the current inflation targeting era results in a neutral or terminal cash rate around 150 basis points above the RBA's estimate of 2.5%," he said.
"Accordingly, we see value emerging during periods where aggressive tightening is priced in without regard to the economy's response to restrictive monetary settings."
Instead, the Janus Henderson team is expecting the RBA rate to peak at 3.1% by late this year or early 2023.
"Such a profile has the RBA feathering the monetary brakes attempting to engineer a soft landing that sees inflation gradually fall back to the top of the RBA's 2% to 3% target band."
