Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar has weakened overnight as the rally in equity and commodity markets associated with the US Fed's third round of quantitative easing last Thursday night lost strength.

Australia: Major equity indices in Europe and the US gave back some of the strong gains of the last several days with major indices on both sides of the Atlantic losing generally 0.2%-0.3% in value overnight.

Apple Inc. shares hit a new high trading above US$700 in after-market trading for the first time as they revealed they sold 2 million iPhones 5 on the first day of release.

Crude oil which has had a strong run recently gave back some of its gains to finish lower with WTI crude trading last at US$96.50 a barrel.

Base metals prices were mixed with copper falling 1% but after it reached almost a five month high after the announcement of QE3. Gold fell back slightly to US$1,761 an ounce after trading strongly in the last several days as investors feared the precious metal would continue to move higher in light of all the continued money printing by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB.

A report released yesterday said that foreigners owned 77% of the outstanding Australian government debt of $245bn at the end of June 2012 which was down from a level of 79% at the end of March.

There was also a report that there may be as many as 23 central banks that now own the AUD as part of their reserves. Today at 11:30 AM the RBA minutes from September 4th will be released and will be closely reviewed for hints at further changes in the official cash rate of 3.50%.

In early afternoon, RBA Assistant Governor DeBelle will be speaking at a conference in Adelaide.

Majors: The USD continued its weak tone versus the EUR in the mid 1.3100's which has seen the AUDEUR cross rate move lower and trade below 0.8000 which is quite a reversal from the levels of the high 0.8400's in the last month.

German Chancellor Merkel commented overnight that her country's share in the ECB bond buying plan was not restricted to a maximum level of EUR190bn in the total EUR750bn EFSF/ESM bailout fund.

In the US, September's Empire Manufacturing Index was released and was weaker than expected and also weaker from the previous month although there was some optimism on the forward looking components.

Economic Calendar
18 SEPT AU Reserve Bank Board Minutes
AU RBA Debelle Speaks
UK CPI
US Current Account Balance

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