Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is slightly lower this morning following quiet range bound trade overnight.

Australia: This morning, the AUD has opened around USD0.9030 ahead of today's release of the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's February board meeting. Overnight, markets were pretty much range bound with the US markets closed for Presidents' Day public holiday. Today's minutes will be closely watched for any hints on the monetary policy bias and any comments on the AUD. In its post-Board meeting media release the bank had outlined that it had moved to a neutral policy bias and dropped its reference to the AUD that is was at uncomfortable high levels. This saw the AUD rally almost a cent pushing it towards recent highs above USD0.9000.

Majors: As mentioned above, offshore markets were relatively quiet with US markets closed and no key economic data releases elsewhere. European equities were little changed, although the FTSE did climb around 1%. The GBP and the JPY weakened slightly against the USD but most majors traded within a tight range. Tonight the US markets return from a public holiday with the Empire State manufacturing release for February, where a pullback is expected due to the recent severe weather. That will be followed by the monthly TIC flows data for December and the NAHB Housing Index for February. UK inflation data for January is being released along with official house prices for December.

Economic Calendar

  1. 18 FEB AU RBA Minutes of February Meeting
  2. UK CPI Mom/YoY
  3. UK PPI Output NSA Mom/YoY

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