The Australian Dollar has opened firmer against the greenback trading back above USD1.0400 after seeing a low of USD1.0368 overnight.

Australia: Disappointing jobs data trimmed gains and weighed on earlier optimism in yesterday’s session as figures showed the weakest Christmas seasonal hiring in almost two decades. Total employment fell 29.3% (seasonally adjusted) in December driven by a very large fall in part time employment (-53.7k). The unemployment rate remained steady 5.2%.

Today will see the release of local import and export prices for Q4 2011 at 11:30am. Market expectation is for +0.6% q/q for import prices and -2.0% q/q for export prices. Key data release for today will be the HSBC Flash manufacturing MPI for China for January at 1:30pm (AEDT).

Majors: US stocks advanced for a third straight day as positive corporate results, improved US jobs data and successful Euro bond auctions buoyed markets. US Jobless claims were down sharply to 325k, the lowest since April 2008. The S&P 500 added 0.3% to 1312.42, the Dow Jones added 0.2% to 12,597.49 while the Nasdaq added 0.7% to 2789.9. Euro debt worries eased somewhat after a Spanish auction of 10 year bonds raised more than the forecast 3 billion euros at a rate of 5.403%; lower than the same bond auction in November last year. The French bond auction was also successful overnight.

The FTSE 100 added 0.7% to 5,741.15 whilst the DAX added 1% to 6416.26. ECB president Draghi again cautionedovernight that “We see a softening business cycle in Europe with significant downside risk”. Official statements on the Eurozone economic outlook saw the IMF is reported to expect a relatively shallow recession in the euro zone.

Economic Calendar
20 JAN AU Import / Export Price Index Q4
CH MNI Business Sentiment Survey JAN
UK Retail Sales DEC
US Existing Home Sales DEC