Australia: The Australian Dollar has opened up in the high 0.8300's this morning after struggling on Friday evening's trade to fall short of 0.8500, following the new Prime Minister Julia Gillard announcement of a compromise position on the RSPT (Resource Super Profits Tax) which became the MRRT (Mineral Resource Rent Tax).

AUD cross rates to the EUR, GBP and JPY continue to move lower. We expect a small modest trading range today due to the US July 4 holiday tonight. Today the ANZ publishes their job ads survey.

Tomorrow afternoon the RBA will meet and we anticipate there will be no change to the current cash rate of 4.50%.

Majors: The decline of 125k in US nonfarm payrolls was less than the expected 112k increase. There were only 83k jobs added in the private sector after a decline of 225k in temporary workers employed by the US government in conjunction with the 2010 census from the previous month.

There is no joy in the unemployment rate, which on the surface fell to 9.5% from 9.8%, but there was a decline of 625k in the US labour force, which improved the figure.

The equity markets reacted to this uninspiring news by declining modestly with Dow down 0.5% to 9,686 although it was down over 1.5% at one point in time before recovering.

The S&P 500 was down 0.5% to 1,023 and the NASDAQ down by a similar amount to 2,092. Crude oil fell slightly to US$72 a barrel on this weaker economic data and spot gold rose only a touch to US$1211 an ounce after its big U$40 fall at the end of last week. US factory orders for May added to the woes with a fall of 1.4%, which was more than expected.

USD/EUR rose to over 1.2600 on Friday evening, as short covering was the tone of the day after the European banks repaid 450b in 12-month loans to the European Central Bank.

Eurozone unemployment for the 16 member nations remained at 10%, which is still at a 12 year high.

India surprised the market on Friday by raising interest rates by 0.25% to 5.5% as inflation jumped to over 10%.

Again we anticipate fairly tight trading ranges in Europe today ahead of the US holiday.

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