Australia: The AUD is fairly unchanged from yesterday's close to be currently trading around USD0.9030 despite the huge gains posted in the offshore equity markets. The rescue package which was announced yesterday morning by European policy makers totaling almost USD1 trillion saw investors move straight back into riskier assets such as the AUD and the JPY as confidence in the markets was restored. This pushed the AUD through the USD0.9000 resistance barrier and is now sitting firmly above this figure. Yesterday our local markets had a positive day with the ASX200 up 119points or 2.7% and looks to have another big rally after the US and European equity markets also posted positive gains overnight. The DOW was up 3.9% and the Nasdaq up 4.8% while gains in several European markets topped 9%. With little local economic data due to be released today, we should see the AUD take a lead from the equity markets and move higher towards USD0.9100. Tonight the Federal Government will hand down its 2010 - 2011 Federal Budget. The Federal Government will be trying to achieve a balance between decreasing the stimulatory measures included in the budget to ensure that pressure on interest rates increasing doesn't continue, while not discouraging voters by doing so. Their medium term outlook may be the most interesting as they attempt to return the budget back to surplus in the next few years, while also delivering new but expensive policy commitments such as the federal-state health reform.

Majors: As mentioned above the market reacted strongly to the rescue package announced for Greece and other European countries yesterday. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a 750billion euros plan for Greece and it's neighbours in an effort to reduce the impact of the sovereign debt issues that threatened the global economic recovery. The deal is made up of 440 billion euros from euro-zone countries and 60 billion euros from the European Commission, while the IMF would also offer a 250billion euro loan facility. The scope of the plan released was greater than many analysts had expected and eased fears that the markets had that leaders would be unsuccessful in containing the crisis. Despite the current political turmoil in the UK at the moment, with the result from last weeks election still yet to be resolved, the Bank of England overnight announced that it would maintain it's current economic stimulus package which consists of a 200billion pound asset purchase program and also left the official bank rate unchanged at 0.50%.

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