Themes

· General mood is “risk off”

· Australian Job Advertisements -0.5% from +0.7% last

· Japanese Consumer Confidence slightly weaker than expected at 33.0

What’s Moving

With China, Singapore, and Hong Kong on holidays today, it was never going to be a big session in Asia today. That left Just Australia and Japan to fill the liquidity void.

As such, ranges were tight early on, with some two-way trade consolidating Friday night movements. The Dollar held slightly firmer across all of the majors, although most pairs held within Friday’s ranges.

The one exception to this was the AUD/USD, which plumbed new lows after an HSBC report said that the RBA will not hike Australian interest rates tomorrow due to the Federal election. This report received wide distribution in the Australian financial Review.

For tonight, expect U.S. rates to continue to dominate trade, with little more than second tier data on the slate.

Data tonight sees:

· German Retail Sales (E: +0.2%)

· Euro-Zone final Manufacturing PMI (E: 55.3)

· Canadian Manufacturing PMI (E: 58.2)

· U.S. Manufacturing PMI (E: 59.7)

· U.S. Construction Spending (E: +0.8%)