Australia: The Australian Dollar has opened trading thismorning at 1.0000 after being sold off on Friday to a low of0.9960.

The sell off on Friday occurred after RBAGovernor Glen Stevens' testimony in which he described Autsralia's terms of trade as very strong but noted caution of the consumer and weakness in retail as being keyreasons for no need for rate hikes in the near term.

He also noted he agreed with the Government's forecast of a loss of 0.5% to GDP in the next quarter, but said that it would be recovered during the remainder of the year.

Despite the relief for many borrowers, Stevens also saidcommodities (cotton and iron ore) and many foods atrecord levels, and this is likely to remain the case for sometime.

While the AUD saw profit taking following the RBAcomments, we still expect the AUD to remain firm and feelexporters will be active on any dips in the currency.

Today sees the release of Australian housing finance datathough the main focus will be the release of Chinese tradebalance data (market expectations of US$11.3bn) and importantly, CPI tomorrow will be of global interest given China's rate hikes of late in a clear attempt to cool the economic powerhouse's rapid growth.

Majors: The history making news over the weekend saw the Egypt's President Mubarak resign and this was metwith definite relief by the markets.

The news sparked arally in global stock markets and saw the VIX "fear" indexfor US stocks trade to its lowest levels since mid 2007.

Crude oil prices fell as the Middle East tension easedwhile on other commodities Cotton traded to a new recordof US$ 1.95 per pound, cotton prices have risen 30% this year.

In the US on Friday saw further releases of stronger data with the release of the US Consumer Confidencerising to 75.1 from 74.2, an eight-month high, which continues to show the markets sign the US Economy isever so slowly recovering (in line with Fed ReserveChairman Bernanke's remarks last week).Oil (US$ / bbl) 85.58 -1.3CRB Index 337.78 -0.6Equities Last - / + (%) 2 Economic CalendarASX 200 4881 -0.7 14 FEB AUST Home Loan Approvals DECDow Jones 12273 0.4 CH Trade Balance (USD