RBA, Fed Reserve, ECB All in Action This Week

AUD

The Aussie dollar opens largely down against majors while the ASX finished Friday’s session up 0.2%, led by tech stocks that finished up 0.5%. The Asian equities also had strong close to last week, with the Shanghai Comp up 1.1% and the Nikkei up 1.4%. Only marginal changes when it comes to commodities, with Gold up 0.1%, Silver up 0.5%, Copper up 0.3% and Iron Ore down 0.4%. Not too much volatility is predicted with the Australian Dollar this week, with the key data of the week set for release on Tuesday when the Reserve Bank of Australia release the Cash Rate, which markets are predicting to remain flat at 3.60%. It's a busy week globally for Central Banks, with both the US and European Central Banks also in action later in the week.

USD

AUDUSD opens down at 0.6610, having again lost the 66 cent handle on Friday before staging a mini recovery. Wall street rallied into the weekend, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both gaining 0.8% while the NASDAQ closed 0.7% higher. To Friday's data, and US Personal Incomes for March were up 0.3% with Personal Spending flat, both results coming in 0.1% higher than expected. Core PCE which is the Fed Reserve's favourite measure of consumer inflation was 0.3% MoM and 4.6% YoY as expected, which should give the greenlight to a 25bps rate hike on Wednesday evening.  Also released, the Employment Cost Index was higher than forecasts, the Chicago PMI for April was better than expectations and to finish off what was a strong round of US data, the final reading of the University of Michigan Sentiment Survey for April was also able to meet expectations. Lots of big data set for release in the US this week, with ISM Manufacturing PMI first up tonight, the Fed Rate decision on Wednesday night, and the Non-Farm Employment report to close the week out on Friday.

EUR

AUDEUR opens slightly down at 0.6001 having traded sub-60 on Friday for the fist time since October 2020. European equities were higher into the close with CAC gaining 0.1% and the DAX up 0.8%. There was a flurry of Euro-data which saw German 1Q GDP rise 0.2% y/y coming in lower than expectations of +0.8%. The Q1 GDP for the Eurozone as a whole grew 0.1%, coming in lower than an expected 0.2%. Also in Germany, April CPI rose 7.2% y/y, slightly lower than a forecasted 7.3%. Looking to the week ahead, and after a slow start today with a bank holiday, things will heat up with European inflation data due for release on Tuesday night and the the main event with the ECB interest rate decision on Thursday night, markets expecting a 25bps rate hike.

GBP

AUDGBP continued what has been a poor last fortnight, opening down at 0.5260 having set fresh 15-month lows on Saturday morning. Inline with buoyant global equity bourses, the FTSE rose by 0.5%. The British are following on from a quiet week last week, with another quiet week ahead on the calendar starting with a bank holiday today. No major pieces of data are set for release, still preparing for the Official Cash Rate to be released the following week.

NZD

AUDNZD echoes the poor start to the week, opening down at 1.0711. With very little data last week, the Kiwis have their Employment Change q/q and Unemployment Rate to look forward to on Wednesday morning. Unemployment is forecasted to be up 0.1% to 3.5% total, whilst they also tip a 0.4% increase in employment.