Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar remains steady just below USD 0.9200 this morning after a relatively uneventful session overnight.

Australia: In currency markets, a quiet session was had with most major currencies sticking to recent ranges, the exception being USD/JPY which traded to the topside.

As expected, the flow of commentary from Fed Chairman Bernanke at the Humphrey Hawkins testimony brought little new light to the policy outlook. Both US and European equities gained overnight, with US stocks supported by solid earnings results from Morgan Stanley and IBM.

US Treasuries sold off, giving back some of yesterday's gains, with an improvement in the Philadelphia Fed survey also supporting moves.

Day two of Bernanke's semi-annual testimony provided little new information, but he did comment that it's "way too early to make any judgment" on whether a September start to the tapering of the Fed's monetary stimulus is appropriate.

The G-20 meets this weekend and Japanese upper house elections are on Sunday. Today in Asia is expected to be a quiet session with few economic data releases of note.

The AUD remains in a consolidation pattern above 0.9000. Positioning remains very short and apart from the G-20 meeting we see few risk events that could dislodge the currency from these levels in the very near term. The calendar is fairly uninteresting out until the middle of next week when the Australian CPI is due plus China's Flash HSBC Manufacturing PMI.

Majors: The US Dollar was mixed overnight, with gains against the NZD, AUD and JPY. However, the CAD, EUR and the Scandinavian currencies were up against the USD. Overall, the USD index rose by 0.2%.

Commodity prices again were firmer overnight, with energy prices the standout, oil up about 1.5% and gas by 5.1%. The run up in copper prices since the beginning of July continued and, noteworthy for Australia, iron ore prices posted a 1.6% gain to $131.90 a tonne.

After a very busy week, culminating with Fed Chair Bernanke's testimony to Congress today is a lean day in terms of scheduled economic events. NZ has some data due on Net Migration early this morning, followed by Credit Card billings at 1.00pm AEST.

The only other scheduled events are the UK Public Sector Financial figures due this evening. In the US, the reporting season
continues with around 80 companies scheduled to report today, although most of them are not household names.
Economic Calendar
19 JULY JN Japan buying Foreign Bonds/Stocks
GE Producer Prices Jun
UK Public Sector net borrowing Jun