Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar has slipped below the .9400 level over the weekend as the latest US economic data was slightly better than expected.
Australia: The AUD has slipped back below the 94 cent level after the latest US durable goods and capital goods figures were published on Friday evening. With very little local news scheduled for this week in Australia, most investors eyes will be on the US where a number of major announcements are scheduled.

On Wednesday we will see the GDP figures for Q2 and also the beginning of the monthly two day US Federal Reserve meeting. No real change is expected in the continued monthly reduction of asset purchases by the US central bank. Locally the major announcement will be building approvals and private credit sector figures on Thursday. We expect the local currency to trade in a fairly tight range at the beginning of the week.

Volatility may increase midweek as the market digests comments from the US Federal Reserve and we see the results of the GDP for Q2.

Majors: On Friday, US durable goods orders grew by 0.7% m-o-m versus the 0.5% expected and this figure was a turnaround from the decline of
0.9% last month. Non-defense capital goods orders grew at 1.4% after declining 1.2% on a revised basis last month.

It will be interesting to see the GDP result for Q2 on Wednesday. In Germany, the IFO business survey of business sentiment declined in July to a figure of 108 from the 109.7 level in June. We saw the UK's Q2 GDP figures on Friday which were up 0.8% qoq and 3.1% yoy pretty much in line with expectations.

The UK economy has now recovered to be slightly above the pre-crisis levels of Q1 in 2008. The GBP has performed strongly recently but is now
showing signs of weakness since the the best of the improvement in the UK economy seems to be behind it now. On the weekend we saw
industrial profits from China rise 17.9% yoy which was higher than the June rise of 8.9%.

Tonight from the US we see the latest Markit composite PMI and services numbers for July as well as the Dallas Federal Reserve district's manufacturing activity figures and pending home sales figures.

Economic Calendar
28 JUL AU NAB Quarterly Australian Wealth Sentiment Q2
US Pending Home Sales Jun
US Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity July
29 JUL AU HIA New Home Sales Jun

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