Westpac’s Evans Goes From Zero to Hero on Australia RBA Call

Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac Banking Corp., was Australia’s loneliest forecaster four weeks ago as the first to predict an interest-rate cut.

Traders acting on Evans’s July 15 prediction would have profited amid the market carnage sparked by Europe’s debt crisis and the first U.S. credit-rating downgrade. The yield on the nation’s three-year government bond dropped as low as 3.41 percent from 4.41 percent, handing investors a 23 percent annualized return. The benchmark stock index has tumbled 5.4 percent and Australia’s dollar lost 2.9 percent.