Dollar lower. Overnight Recap.

The dollar is opening the NY session weaker. The decline is on the hopes that Greece is close to reaching an agreement with private sector creditors on a bond swap. EU officials also agreed yesterday on the framework for the 500 billion rescue fund set for July.  The market is also awaiting the 2nd round of 3 year loans from the ECB in February. A report in the FT said the demand may be 2 to 3x the previous amount which is positive for the pair.  In Germany retail sales fell by 1.4% in the current month. This was much lower than expectations (+0.8%), but the change in unemployment showed strength with 34 thousand decline (exp -10K).  The Unemployment Rate fell to 6.7% from 6.8%.  In France Consumer Spending also fell by a larger than expected -0.7% v +0.2% exp. Italy’s UnE Rt rose to 8.9% vs 8.7%.  The mkt seems to be focusing on the good and not the bad today.  There was also increased interest in adding risk in the overnight session. Global stock markets all have green up arrows. Gold and Oil are also up. The USDCAD moved to lowest levels since October 31st and is approaching the 200 day MA at 0.9951 today.  The NZDUSD continued its march higher, reaching the highest level since September 2011 and is testing the 61.8% of the move down from the August 2011 high.  Building Permits were less than expected but it did not stop the pair from moving higher. The AUDUSD also made a move higher, but has not been able to move above the high from last wk (at 1.0685).

On tap today includes the US Employment Cost index (+0.4%) for the 4Q, Case Schilling Home Price Index for the top 20 US cities (-3.3% YoY v -3.4%),the Chicago PMI( 63 vs 52.2) and Consumer Confidence (68 v 64.5, highest since Feb 2011).In Canada Industrial Product Px and Raw Material Px are due (-0.1% and 0.0% exp) along with the GDP data for the month of November (0.2% vs 0.0% last on MoM and 2.3% vs 2.7% last).