Australian Dollar: The Australian unemployment rate surprised investors yesterday improving to an annualized figure of 4.9% against an expected 5% result.

[Sign up here to get this report delivered to your inbox daily]

The report showed an additional 38,000 jobs were added to the local economy pushing the Aussie dollar to fresh new levels and saw the little battler briefly moving above the 1.05 mark against the greenback in the offshore session. In what has been an eventful week with commodities remaining firm and monetary adjustments dictating offshore headlines, the Australian Dollar has settled this morning to open a rate of 1.0471 against its US Counterpart.

We expect a range today of 1.0410 to 1.0510

New Zealand Dollar: The New Zealand Dollar again surged in Asian trade yesterday (high of 0.7807) as the market players again chased and pushed high yielding currencies onwards and upwards.

Moving into the European and US sessions, the pairs traded between 0.7736 and 0.7802 as risk appetite took hold yet again. With little in the way of domestic data out of New Zealand, the dollar will take direction from offshore events and happenings. Against the Australian Dollar, the Kiwi is up and is trading at 0.7439 (1.3442).

We expect a range today of 0.7700 to 0.7800

Great British Pound: As the market expected, the Bank of England kept the overnight cash rate on hold at 0.50% as MPC walks a very fine line of curtailing increasing inflation without hampering growth expectations within the UK. It also left its Asset Purchase Facility at GBP200 billion.

Governor Mervyn King and Co are now at a cross roads with rates, with pressure mounting on when interest rates will need to raise to curb inflation that is already two times above the bank's target rate. The Pound initially feel against the Greenback on the announcement before settling into a 1 cent range (1.6261 - 1.6341) during the session. Versus the Australian and New Zealand Dollar, the Pound Sterling is currently changing hands at 1.5585 and 2.0964 respectively.

We expect a range today of 1.5450 to 1.5650

Majors: The ECB (European Central Bank) was the first of the majors to officially lift its overnight cash rate with the bank increasing rates by 25 basis points to 1.25%. The rhetoric coming out of Europe over the last several weeks has been for a hike but many in the market are unsure if this is the start of a trend or merely a one off token gesture.

In the accompanying press conference ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet left the door open for additional rate rises to tame inflation but also advised that the increase was not the start of a trend. Against the Greenback, the EURO maintained its recent momentum trading between 1.4240 and 1.4325. In other news, Portugal officially submitted a request to the European Commission last night requesting monetary assistance (somewhere in the region of EUR75 Billion) to help with the regions debt crisis. The Japanese Yen gained somewhat against the US Dollar following a 7.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan. The Yen reached an intraday high of 84.75.

Data releases

AUD: No data scheduled for release

NZD: No data scheduled for release

JPY: BOJ Monthly Report; Economy Watchers Sentiment

GBP: PPI Input and Output m/m

EUR: ECOFIN meetings

USD: Wholesale Inventories

More from IBT Markets:
Newsletter: To receive Global Markets update, sign up here