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Coming up from Australia today:
2230GMT - Weekly Consumer Sentiment. Prior was 111.3
2320GMT - Philip Lowe, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia speaks on Resilience And Ongoing Challenges, at the Urban Development Institute of Australia. I don't know how much he is going to say on the economy or monetary policy at this venue, but we'll soon find out. I expect if he mentions the currency it won't be to give it a boost, K?
0030GMT - NAB Business Conditions and Confidence for February:
- priors were 5 and 2 respectively
- There are no survey expectations for these, but I expect slightly higher, as long as there is no hangover effect from the volatility in January that seeped into February also. This survey has been pointing in a positive direction for the Aussie economy for a good few months now, coming on top of the surging employment numbers in 2015 and then the blockbuster GDP data for Q4 of 2015. The RBA is content to be in a 'watching' mode - there are some expectations of a slowing in H2 of 2016 (but so far its not really evident) - and are very much 'on hold'. The big concern for them is the strength of the AUD; their attempts at jawboning it down have not had much impact. The turnaround in 'risk' is helping the AUD consolidate its gains since mid-January
Also impacting on the AUD today will be Chinese trade balance data for February. More to come on this.
