Nicholas Moore, chief executive of Macquarie has added his voice to growing calls made by leaders of industry for interest rates to be cut next week as a means by which confidence in the country would be boosted by helping export based industries who are currently suffering from the high value of the Australian dollar.

Mr. Moore made his comments after revealing profits at the investment bank plunged by nearly 24 per cent in the face of global market volatility. The performance was the worst on record since the very depths of the global financial crisis.

In response Macquarie has cut as many as 1300 positions from its workforce globally as it undertakes a strategy of cost control.

The investment bank blamed its poor performance on results from its two main units, Macquarie Capital and Macquarie Securities.

The latter business is Macquarie's institutional broking business, which produced its first ever loss of $184 million...

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