Not sure which way the dollar is heading? Why not speak to your OzForex dealer about protecting your foreign exchange payments or receipts using our Currency Options solution.

Australian Dollar:  The Australian dollar has continued to slide from highs earlier this week near 1.0500 as nerves grip the markets ahead of this evening’s summit of European leaders. Dwindling down over the course of the previous 24 hours, ongoing volatility meant the Aussie had a few rally attempts back towards 1.05, however in the current market environment it seemed too big of a hurdle to jump just yet. Locally the Aussie has its own key risk event today in that of quarterly CPI figures, a greater than expected increase in CPI likely to boost interest rate expectations and hence the value of our dollar. A disappointing figure could open up risk to the downside ahead of what we expect to be a volatile offshore session. The Australian Dollar trades this morning at 1.0430.
 
New Zealand Dollar:  The growth of consumer prices slowed to 0.4% over the past 3 months, after a 1% growth that was posted in the second quarter this year. This worse than expected CPI figure dampened interest rate expectations for tomorrow’s meeting of the RBNZ and caused the New Zealand Dollar to be amongst the worst performers of the day. Dropping almost 40 points immediately upon release, a general move away from riskier currencies mean the Kiwi continued along the downward path. Touching as low of 0.7950 by the North American session, we open this morning just off these lows at 0.7960. Also losing ground against the Australian dollar, the pair has moved through 1.3000 (0.7692) for the first time in almost 4 months, trading this morning near 1.3090.
 
Great British Pound: The Great British Pound remains on the precipice of 1.6000 as it waits for the outcome of this evening’s meeting to forge direction. The Bank of England’s governor Mervyn King addressed the parliament’s Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday about the Bank's recent decision to launch a fresh round of quantitative easing, stating the decision was almost made a month earlier. He also encouraged incentives to make it easier for banks to lend to SME’s (small and medium enterprises). His words, supporting risk sentiment very slightly, along with an increase in the Current Account balance for the second quarter of this year meant Cable rose to highs near 1.6020 before falling to open this morning at 1.5990. Gaining some modest ground back against it’s antipodean counterparts the GBP/AUD trades at 1.5340 and the GBP/NZD at 2.0080.
 
Majors: A deterioration of US Confidence has boosted demand for safe-haven assets after the monthly survey reported its lowest levels since March 2009, a time when the United States was in recession. The Japanese Yen touched record lows against the Greenback, hitting 75.74, although speculation the Bank of Japan are looking to increase monetary easing at its monthly meeting this week caused the Yen to pare some of these gains. Markets are now in a ‘wait-and-see’ mode in the lead up to this evening’s critical EU summit, where anticipation of a golden plan is running high. The Euro remains in range-bound trade around the 1.3900 handle and the Yen holds stoically below key psychological levels at 75.90.

Data releases
 
AUD: CPI q/q
NZD: NBNZ Business Confidence
JPY: CSPI y/y
GBP: CBI Industrial Order Expectations
EUR: EU Economic Summit;
USD: Core Durable Goods Orders m/m; New Home Sales