Themes

· General mood is “risk off”

· Australian Retail Sales stronger at +1.6%

· New Zealand Unemployment Rate as expected at 3.2%

What’s Moving

Another quiet session in Asia today with China and Japan on holidays again and ahead of tonight’s FOMC meeting. With little local data on offer (and what was on offer being largely ignored), markets held tight ranges amid light two-way trading.

The market is expecting the FOMC to hike U.S. interest rates by 50bps and any move different to this will see a wide swing. If the FOMC

Data tonight sees: The Aussie saw some buying today as locals took second look at yesterday’s RBA rate hike in Australia.

Tonight, we expect everything to be fairly subdued until the FOMC announces on U.S. interest rates.

· German Trade (E: 12.3bln)

· Spanish Unemployment (E: -75.0k)

· Euro-zone Retail Sales (E: -0.3%)

· Canadian Trade Balance (E: 3.7bln)

· U.S. Trade Balance (E: -107.3bln)

· Crude Oil Inventories (E: -0.7mln)