US Consumer Confidence Expected to Ease Tonight

AUD

The Aussie dollar opens mixed against the majors this morning with very little news released overnight. Asian equities had a mixed start to the week with the Nikkei adding 0.9% while the Hang Seng fell 1.6%. The ASX closed 0.1% higher with tech stocks outperforming. Commodities were generally weaker, with WTI crude oil finishing 0.1% lower to $89.90/ barrel. With no data out yesterday and today, the Aussie dollar will look towards tomorrow's CPI y/y print. An increasingly neutral RBA could be a major obstacle for Aussie bulls, whereby RBA tightening seems to have potentially reached the end of the road with inflation in Australia falling to just below 5% in July. Tomorrow's CPI print is expected at 5.2% y/y so anything off-expectations could move the Aussie dollar.

USD

AUDUSD gave back the weekend gains overnight to open today at 0.6424, having touched 0.6404 lows. Wall St. finished Monday in the black following its worst week since March, with the S&P 500 up 0.4%, Nasdaq up 0.5% and the Dow up 0.1%. This morning, FOMC member Kashkari mentioned that US consumer spending continues to exceed expectations. This adds to recent hawkish undertones given the Fed's dot plots recently surprised to the upside, driving the 'higher for longer' rhetoric. Tonight, we’ll see CB Consumer confidence, New Home Sales and the Richmond Manufacturing Index.  Consumer confidence expectations are 105.5 which reflects an extension of August’s decline after some brief gains in June and July. Regardless, business conditions remain relatively resilient in the US.

EUR

AUDEUR took a small dip during the Monday afternoon session down to 0.6026, before recovering to open today at 0.6063. The DAX gave up 1% while the CAC gave up 0.8% in yesterday’s session. The biggest piece of news came from ECB President Lagarde speaking last night before the EU parliament where she largely repeated the ECB policy stance in saying that inflation was moderating but would remain too high for too long. She also noted that there are currently no discussions of rate cuts within the ECB. With no data out tonight for the Eurozone, the AUDEUR will be looking towards the German and Spanish CPI’s coming out on Thursday.

GBP

AUDGBP remains mostly flat, with it taking a small dip to 0.5243 yesterday afternoon before opening today at 0.5260, while the FTSE fell 0.8% overnight. The Brits had their CBI Realised Sales come in last night a little better than expected at -14, although still a lot less than their economy needs. Today, they’ve got some low impact data coming out through their 10-y bond auction which can be used to decipher investors' outlook on future interest rates.

NZD

AUDNZD took a hit over the last 24 hours, opening up at 1.0763, down from yesterday’s open of 1.0810. No major news for the NZD at the moment with the next piece being low impact data in the form of the ANZ Business Confidence level on Thursday which can be a leading indicator of economic health for New Zealand.