Australia: The RBA left the official cash rate unchanged at 4.75% yesterday. Prior to the release, the AUD was relatively bid however following the release, the AUD traded lower through 1.0700.

The comments in the accompanying RBA statement noted that Australia's terms of trade are reaching very high levels in response to high levels of commodity prices.

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The Board noted households were continuing to show some degree of caution in regards to spending and borrowing. The statement noted the summer's natural disasters in the form of floods and cyclones reduced output in key sectors.

This clearly has led to a fall in GDP but as production resumes, albeit at a slower pace than most would like, overall growth is likely to be at trend or higher.

The next opportunity for a policy tightening seems to be August after Q2 CPI in late July. Maybe the urgency for the RBA to raise rates in July has in fact eased?

Overseas, LME base metals rose slightly overnight while copper and nickel where flat ally was up 0.8%. Gold fell US $3.20 to be trading at US$1,543 per ounce while oil is trading at US$99.09 a barrel.

In Australia today, housing finance for April is out with the market expecting an increase of 2%, following three consecutive monthly falls in the first part of 2011. The jump will largely reflect increased sales volumes, rather than house price growth, which remains weak. We see the AUD staying near current levels today.

Majors: Overnight in the US equity markets ended down slightly with the Dow off 0.2% and the S&P down 0.1%.

Stocks fell after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech in which he said the recent softness in the US economy is based on supply chain disruptions associated with the Japan earthquake and higher oil prices.

He said he expects the second half of the year to be better, saying that the recovery "appears to be proceeding at a moderate pace" and "the labour market has been gradually improving".

Meanwhile in Europe the German factory orders for April reported a rise of 2.8% to be 10.5% higher than a year ago while the Euro-zone retail sales for April rose by 0.9% better than the market had expected.

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