Australian Dollar Outlook – December 2, 2014

A businessman walks past the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney February 4, 2014. Australia's central bank kept its main cash rate at a record low of 2.5 percent on Tuesday as widely expected but surprised some by saying further cuts were not in the cards, dropping its bias to ease policy. REUTERS/Jason Reed (AUSTRALIA - Tags: BUSINESS)

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The focus turns to the RBA. Rates are expected to remain unchanged, but the statement is likely to be AUD dovish.

Australia: The Gold price offered some support for the AUD, now trading almost a big figure up on yesterday's 0.8417, trading above 0.8500 at time of this update. AUD nevertheless continues to underperform against the

NZD, the cross now trading below 1.08 for the first time since 22 July. Domestically, there is a fair bit of interest today in the form of Q3 Balance of Payments data (including the Net Export component feeding

Wednesday's GDP figures), alongside the ABS estimate of Public Final Demand (also relevant to GDP), October building approvals and then the latest RBA decision. On the later, the language accompanying what is universally expected to be a 'no change' rates decision will as usual be closely studied for changes.

Majors: Yesterday, global oil prices fell to a 5-year low. The slide on oil prices has weighed on the outlook for inflation across the globe. The Russian Rouble dropped another 9% to 54.0 at one point, its biggest fall by far since Russia's 1998 debt default. While the sharp RUB decline helps protect oil revenue in local currency terms it also makes servicing foreign debts much more expensive for Russian banks and corporates. Gold too has enjoyed a dramatic jump, up $49 to be back above $1200 despite Sunday's Swiss referendum result showing rejection of the notion that the Swiss National Bank should hold a minimum 20% of its reserve in gold. The Euro area final manufacturing PMI was revised down to 50.1 in November from a flash print of 50.4 (and October's 50.6). The national figures were quite mixed - Germany's downward revision to 49.5 from a flash read of 50 and October final of 51.4 was disappointing following the better IFO data and ZEW survey last week. The rebound in UK manufacturing activity has continued in November following the August/September slump, with the manufacturing PMI rising to 53.5 in November from an upwardly revised 53.3 in October. That said, the heat continues to come out of the UK housing market with mortgage approvals easing again to 59.4k in October from 61.2k in September (and a peak of 76.6k in January). This was the lowest read in the series since June 2013.

ECONOMIC CALENDAR

02 DEC AU Building Approvals Oct

AU RBA Interest rate Decision Dec

EU PPI Oct

US Construction Spending Oct

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