The Australian dollar is currently trading around USD0.9770 this morning following some positive news released overnight both in Europe and the US.

Australia: The German parliament passed the additional funding; 523 members voted in favour, while only 83 opposed. Greek bonds rallied following the news while the Italian bond auction was also reported to have been well received. Base metals where mainly higher overnight with nickel up 0.9%, lead up 0.5% and aluminium up 0.5%. Copper ended the session down 0.3% although it did recover most of its losses after being down 6% earlier in the session.

Gold rose 0.3% to be trading at US$1,614.25 an ounce while oil ended up 2.4% at US$83.14 a barrel. Soft commodities also saw nice gains overnight following eased concerns over the European debt situation with sugar the standout gaining 6.5%.

This morning ratings agency Fitch downgraded New Zealand's sovereign rating from AA+ to AA as the fiscal deterioration following the earthquake being the result for the downgrade. Today locally will see the release of the RP Data Rismark house price data and the August private sector credit figures. Also Treasurer Wayne Swan will release the final Budget figures for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Majors: Equity markets in Europe and the US posted gains with the DOW finishing up 1.3%, while Frankfurt and Paris both saw gains of 1.1%. On the data front the German unemployment fell slightly to 6.9% while in the US the jobless claims data fell by 37k to 391k last week. The third estimate of the Q2 US GDP was also revised up to 1.3% from 1.0%.Today the market will be paying attention to the release of the China PMI to see if any slowdown is occurring following the global growth concerns. In Europe
and the US tonight will see a raft of data with markets likely to continue to focus on the headlines regarding the euro-zone debt issues.

Economic Calendar:

30 SEPT AU Private Sector Credit AUG, CH HSBC Manufacturing PMI SEP, JP Industrial Production AUG, US Uni of Michigan Confidence SEP