Bell FX Currency Outlook: It was a quiet start to the week with no significant data releases overnight.

Australia: The AUD remained very range bound through the overnight session. In Australia today, the key event will be the NAB business survey.
We expect business confidence to have been broadly unchanged and conditions to record a modest improvement in line with other industry and
consumer surveys.

The NAB measure of firms' capacity utilisation will also be closely watched due to its leading relationship with the unemployment rate. The ABS house price index for Q2 is also released at 11:30AEST and prices are expected to have risen modestly over the quarter (mkt:+1.0% q/q).

But, the over-riding direction in most markets, given the secondary nature of today's data, is likely to remain geopolitics. With differing levels of intensity and de-escalation in Iraq, Russia, Ukraine, Gaza, Israel; even Turkey, it can be difficult to track which exact source of tension/easing of tension is the most important on the day.

Majors: In currency markets, the moves were very contained despite an improvement in sentiment in broader markets. The general risk environment improved modestly following an easing in tensions in Ukraine, Israel and Iraq. The USD managed to hold onto minor gains despite rising stock prices and little change in bond yields, however individual stories continue to dominate the landscape.

The election results in Turkey raised some concerns, while a higher-than-expected inflation outcome in Norway saw the NOK outperform across the board. US Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer spoke last night on "The Great Recession - Moving Ahead" at a conference in Sweden.

There were few immediate policy implications from the speech with minimal impact on markets. Fischer instead focused on bigger-picture matters of importance for policy makers, the supply side of the economy: low labour supply, capital investment and productivity and whether these problems are structural or cyclical.
Economic Calendar
12 AUG AU NAB Business Confidence/Conditions Jul
AU House Price Index QoQ/YoY Q2
JN Industrial Production MoM Jun
GE ZEW Survey Aug

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