Australia: While the AUD strengthened during the offshore session, pushing back above USD0.9900, a late sell off of US equities has seen our local currency weaken back to the levels seen yesterday.

Currently the AUD is trading around USD0.9840. The strength in the AUD overnight was mainly due to a much better expected retail
sales result in the US, and also can be attributed to the fears around Ireland sovereign debt issues subsiding.

Today sees the release of the RBA's November board minutes, which resulted in an unexpected rate rise by 0.25% bringing the cash rate to 4.75%.

Many investors will be paying close attention to the minutes in a hope to gain some understanding as to why the RBA chose to raise interest rates in November, when most were expecting the raise to occur in October.

Investors will also be interested to see what the standpoint is on further near term interest rate hikes.

Should the RBA release some positive minutes then we could see the AUD strengthen above USD0.9900, but it looks as though the AUD is finding some resistance just above the 0.9900 level.

Majors: As mentioned above, positive retail sales data gave markets a reason to cheer as the results for October well exceeded markets expectations.

Sales increased by 1.2% in October compared to a market expectation of 0.7%. The main contributor to this result was the increase in car sales which gained 5% for the month.

While the markets seemed to focused on the positive data, there was also a poor reading in the NY State Empire Manufacturing business conditions survey which showed conditions fell to -11.14 compared to markets expectations of +14; a 25 point difference.

This is the largest decline on record with new orders and shipment components falling heavily. The news out of Europe was also positive, with inroads being made to help Ireland and its continuing debt problems.

Senior ECB officials confirmed that discussions were underway with possible aid for the region ranging from EUR45bio to EUR90bio for both the Irish banks and the Irish government.

This news pushed the USD to a sixweek high against the EUR as renewed confidence in the US market increased demand for their currency. As a result the EUR/USD has opened this morning weaker USD1.3580.

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