The Australian, Canadian and New Zealand dockets were all looking at event risk for Wednesday’s session. Starting early in the Asian session, Westpac released its December reading on consumer confidence. According to their survey results, optimism rose for the first time in three months as Aussies showed their satisfaction in the outcome of the nation’s general election where Labor, headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, took the reigns. When the New York session rolled around, the Canadian International Merchandise Trade release was competing with the surprise push from central banks to restore liquidity to short-term credit markets – including participation from the BoC. Regardless, the October physical trade balance marked an unexpected rebound from its smallest surplus in eight years to C$3.3 billion as a record high loonie actually cooled import prices faster than it depressed exports. Finally, RBNZ Governor Bollard may be seeing his efforts to cool spending and inflation working as retail sales dropped the most in four months.