Australian one dollar coins
A handful of Australian one dollar coins is shown in Sydney, February 18, 2004. Reuters/Tim Wimborne

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is just above 0.7700 after the three day ANZAC weekend. Markets will be looking forward to Thursday.

Australia: A degree of caution was evident in markets ahead of Thursday’s Fed, BoJ, and RBNZ decisions, with fixed income and currency markets largely at a standstill. The main focus will be on what the Fed delivers Thursday at 4.00am AEST. The market environment has improved since the March Fed meeting, with global yields and commodity prices drifting higher and credit spreads and measures of market volatility unwinding most (if not all) of their early 2016 spikes.

Majors: The Markit US manufacturing PMI disappointed on Friday, falling to 50.8 from 51.5 and 52.0 expected, which overnight March New Homer Sales fell by 1.05% instead of the 1.6% rise expected and the Dallas Fed manufacturing activity survey fell to -13.9 from -13.6, against the rise to -10.0 expected. The German IFO reading for April was 106.6, virtually unchanged from March (106.7). That was still the lowest headline reading in 16 months. Crude oil has fallen by between $ 0.30 (Brent) and $0.74 (WTI) but given the news flow the surprise perhaps is that the falls haven’t been bigger. Saudi Arabia announced it will complete an expansion of its major Shaybah oil field by the end of May, allowing the country to maintain output capacity at 12 million barrels a day.

Economic Calendar 26 APR

  • US Durable Goods Orders Mar
  • US S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices Feb
  • US Markit Composite/Services PMI Apr
  • US Consumer Confidence Apr

Bell Fx

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