Australia: Yesterday's inflation surprise in Australia had a huge impact. The chances of a rate cut this year, and more next year, which had a lot of the business and consumer world's buy in from late last week, has all but vanished it seems, certainly before year end.

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It is quite possible the RBA's tightening bias is more of a fixture. The papers this morning make interesting reading with respected finance journalists Terry McCrann (Herald Sun) and Alan Mitchell (AFR) both suggesting higher rates.

Ordinarily, the RBA could be expected to respond to yesterday's number. There are several reasons they need to be really careful, not the least is the mixed economy we work in here in Australia. The mining sector is booming. A lot of others are hurting. Global uncertainties remain, especially the US debt situation (more below). We see an indicative range today of 1.0975-1.1100 today.

Majors: In the US, the debt impasse is annoying just about every person in the country and affected stock markets. It seems even the Republicans can't agree amongst themselves on a proposal to deal with the US debt situation. Speaker Boehner had to push back a vote among the caucus by a day due to opposition from the fiscal conservative side of the party. The Democrat's plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid felt resistance when it was estimated that cuts were about USD500bn short of what was initially claimed.

It seems the most likely resolution at this stage is for the Senate to pass the Reid bill and then for the Democrats to offer non-Tea Party Republicans in the House further concessions in order to garner their vote. Elsewhere, the Federal Reserve downgraded its assessment of the economy in its Beige Book, noting that growth was now decelerating in eight Fed districts, up from four out of 12 in its 8 June report.

Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schauble warned overnight that the Eurozone debt crisis was far from over and said Greece's bail-out was a one-off. Ratings agency Moody's downgraded Cyprus's sovereign rating from A2 to Baa1 (two notches), while S&P downgraded Greece again, from CCC to CC warnings of the possibility of more and warning of the need for Greece to restructure its debt again within the next two years.

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