The major currency pairings are showing little real change from where we left off in North America Monday, after a relatively quiet session in Asia overnight. Risk aversion remains to the fore with EUR/USD down slightly at 1.2620 from around 1.2650. Asian stockmarkets meanwhile all posted losses. The minutes from The Reserve Bank of Australia’s November monetary policy meeting indicate that the bank is set to continue aggressive rate cutting going forward. It looks highly likely we’ll see a further 50-100 bps cut in December. Regarding the AUD, the bank revealed that recent intervention to support the AUD wasn’t designed to defend any particular level. No surprise there. More poor numbers out of Japan. Nationwide October department store sales fell 6.8% year on year, down 2.1% from Septembers’ yearly decline of 4.7%. Tokyo sales fell 8.4% year on year, down sharply from Septembers’ 4.6% fall.