Daily Forecast - 4/1/2010

:: Australian Dollar: The Australian Dollar opens slightly higher on Monday at 0.8980. Traders squaring up for the New Year kept the Aussie in a tight range last Thursday against its U.S. counterpart. During local hours the Australian Dollar range-traded between 0.8935 and 0.8980. In the offshore session the unit had a couple of brief speculative forays above the US90 cent mark as investors weighed up recent positive moves on commodity markets.?However, the moves were short-lived and a late bout of greenback strength briefly saw the?Aussie hit a 24-hour low of 0.8928 during the New York session.

- We expect a range today in the AUD/USD rate of 0.8920 to 0.9020

:: Great Britain Pound: The Pound continued to rally against the Greenback as the previous days comments from Prime Minster Brown continued to spur demand. Given the time of year, cable traded within a fairly wide range of 1.6047 to 1.6236 for much of the offshore session and at time of writing in Sydney is currently changing hands at 1.6140. Against its Southern Hemisphere counterparts the Pound is marginally higher against the Australian Dollar (1.7960) and New Zealand Dollar (2.2313)

- We expect a range today in the GBP/AUD rate of 1.7850 to 1.8020

:: New Zealand Dollar: Despite a bout of renewed greenback strength late last week, the New Zealand Dollar opens the new calendar year marginally higher at 0.7235. Thin trading conditions and?year-end position-squaring?did little to help the kiwi's cause last Thursday and it spent most of the session range-trading between 0.7220 and 0.7280. During offshore trade the unit had several failed attempts to crack through 0.7280 but ultimately succumbed to the stronger greenback after U.S.?weekly jobless claims came in at an 18-month low.

- We expect a range today in the NZD/USD rate of 0.7180 to 0.7280

:: Majors: Holiday-thinned trading and a lack of any major economic data limited any significant advances in the Greenback last night. The Greenback is marginally higher against the EURO and JPY and is currently trading at 1.4307 and 93.00 respectively. Continued talk in the market that the Federal Reserve is likely to remove some if the recent stimulus by March 2010 has propped up the Greenback of late and confirmation of this in early 2010 will spur further Greenback demand. On the data front, last weeks release of Initial Jobless and Continuing Claims fell to an 18-month low of 432,000 resulting in a late rally in the big dollar.

:: Data Releases: