Quiet Start to Week, AU Retail Sales Tomorrow

AUD

Aussie Dollar opens a tad higher against most majors without much local or Chinese data out over the long weekend. Asian equities closed lower last week, with Hang Seng down -1.8% and Nikkei down -1.3%, while the ASX was closed for our public holiday. Commodities closed mixed, with Crude Oil +0.8%, Natural Gas +1.3%, Gold -0.1%, Silver -0.5% and Iron Ore +1.3%. Looking forward we have 3 sets of CPI numbers released at 11:30am this Wednesday, the CPI q/q, y/y and Trimmed Mean CPI q/q. All are forecasted lower than the previous readings. On Wednesday we also peek into the Chinese manufacturing sector, with their Manufacturing PMI expected at 49.2 (higher than the previous reading, although still in contractionary territory).

USD

AUDUSD opens flat at 0.6573 despite a volatile weekend, reacting off of a flurry of mixed US Unemployment, GDP, PMI and Core PCE figures. Wall Street closed mixed, with the Dow Jones +0.2%, S&P500 -0.1% and NASDAQ -0.4%. Over the weekend, Flash Manufacturing PMI came out much better than expected, expected to contract at 47.6, but actually expanding at 50.3. Flash Services PMI also beat expectations, although to a lesser extent to its Manufacturing counterpart. Employment data came in weaker, with Unemployment claims showing 15K more individuals filing for unemployment than expected. Core PCE Price Index m/m came in right on expectations, with the annual figure surprising to the downside at 2.9%. No major data until Wednesday, where we see JOLTS Job Openings and CB Consumer Confidence. More importantly, the Fed is set to state their Federal Funds Rate this Thursday at 6:00am, along with their usual Statement and Press Conference to follow.
 

EUR

AUDEUR opens higher at 0.6057 after the European Central Bank held rates on Friday, right on expectations across the market. Following press statements reinforced their target inflation level of 2%, reiterating they consider current levels will contribute to their goal. Onto Euro equities, the DAX and CAC both closed higher, at +0.3% and +2.3% respectively. No data until tomorrow night, where we’ll have Spanish Flash CPI y/y expected to remain flat at 3.0%, and more CPI data coming out on Wednesday and Thursday. 
 

GBP

AUDGBP opens a tad higher at 0.5162, with little data coming out over the weekend. FTSE had a slight rally on Friday, closing in at +1.4%. Tomorrow, we have Mortgage Approvals set to stay flat, but the major news for this week will be the Bank of England’s Official Bank Rate on Thursday, expected to hold at 5.25%. So far, they haven’t endorsed rate cuts from their last meeting, and committee members have stayed radio silent since.
 

NZD

AUDNZD opens higher at 1.0782, despite New Zealand’s Trade Balance coming in better than expected this morning, showing a deficit of -323M to its expected -975M. No data was released over the weekend, and this week we look to the ANZ Business Confidence on Wednesday and Building Consents m/m on Friday.