Australia: The Australian dollar has opened slightly firmer this morning following the G-20 Finance meeting held over the weekend in South Korea.

Friday's Australian export prices for Q3 where released and reported a rise of 7.8% wile import prices Q3 rose 0.7% which should point to another strong terms of trade for the Australian economy.

Today's local data release is for the third quarter PPI, while the RBA Governor Glen Stevens is speaking in Canberra this morning and will have the market listening for upbeat comments pointing towards a further rate hike.

Base metals where mixed with copper up 0.3% aluminium +0.6% nickel -1.4% and gold finished flat at US 1325.10 per ounce.

The AUD continues to perform well on the cross rates with the standout being against the GBP which is trading in the mid 0.6200"s.

The AUD is still well supported and given a given a few offshore bids for some local companies we expect the AUD to remain firm with equity markets helping support the AUD.

Majors: Offshore markets on Friday ended slightly lower with the Dow easing -0.1% and the S&P 500 rising 0.2%.

The DAX finished down 0.1% despite the strong data released showing the German economy is continuing to grow.

The German IFO survey for October was stronger than expected at 107.6 from 106.8 in September with growth likely to be 3-4% for the year.

As Germany accounts for about 27% of the euro-zone economy, which is good news for region.

As mentioned above the G-20 Finance Ministers meet in South Korea on the weekend with the outcomes pretty much as expected saying that they will continue with monetary policy which is appropriate to achieve price stability and thereby
contribute to the recovery.

The US was criticised by China and Germany for their loose monetary policy, the German Minister said "there was criticism of the American policy of monetary easing, or creating more liquidity''.

He went on to say that ''an excessive, permanent increase in money is, in my view, an indirect manipulation of (foreign
exchange) rate".

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