Australia: The Australian Dollar has opened around USD0.9000 this morning after trending higher in the early part of the European session.

Despite the lack of local data released yesterday the AUD held above the 0.8900 level all day as it continues to be well supported with strong investor confidence and positive company earning results out of the US.

Base metals where firmer overnight with zinc up 1.8%, nickel up 1.3% and copper up 0.8% which also helped support the AUD.

During the local session we see the release of the June RBA private sector credit data and the house price data for July.

Today it is expected that the AUD will take a lead from equity markets, but could also be under some profit taking pressure from investors given the run back above the USD0.9000 level.

Majors: In the US overnight equity markets finished lower with the Dow down 0.3%, the S&P down 0.45% and the Nasdaq down 0.6%. The earnings released overnight from Colgate Palmolive were weaker.

Although they beat their second quarter profit expectation, they fell short of its forecasted sales of $3.94bn, and as a result saw its shares end the day down 6.8%.

The US Jobless claims data for last week reported a fall of 11k to 457k which was slightly less than expectations.

St Louis Fed President Bullard said that the Federal Reserve should resume purchases of Treasury securities if the economy slows further, rather than maintain the pledge to keep interest rates near zero.

European markets started the session positive following the release which stated that economic conditions where the highest levels in two years.

In Germany the unemployment rate fell to 7.6% in July from 7.7% in June, and the number of unemployed fell 20k to 3.21m, the lowest since November 2008. In The UK the Nationwide house prices reported a fall 0.5% in July, the first fall since February though are still up 6.6% year on year.

Tonight will see a raft of data releases out of the US including the 2Q GDP figures.

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