Themes

· General mood is “risk off”

· Japan closed today for Showa public holiday

· Australian PPI at 1.6% from talk of 1.5%

What’s Moving

After this week’s volatility, it was a quiet open in Asia today, with players awaiting position squaring ahead of the weekend and amid today’s Japanese holiday. Majors pretty much held close to their overnight extremes, with no one relishing giving up on the Dollar bid.

Late morning trade saw a little Dollar profit taking. The Aussie then caught a small bid on a slightly higher than expected Australian PPI print.

Tonight, could really go either way. After the recent run up on the dollar, risk is for some profit taking ahead of the weekend, but with momentum so strongly on the buy side, it could well see new highs.

Data tonight includes:

· French Flash GDP (E: +0.3%)

· German Import Prices (E: +3.5%)

· Swiss Retail Sales (E: +13.3%)

· French Preliminary CPI (E: +0.2%)

· German Preliminary GDP (E: +0.2%)

· U.S. Chicago PMI (E: 62.1)

· U.S. Michigan Sentiment (E: 65.8)