The Aussie market is set to open sharply higher later this morning, after the ECB finally embarked upon a quantitative easing program, to the tune of 1.1 trillion euros until the end of September 2016.

Together with existing schemes to buy private debt and funnel hundreds of billions of euros in cheap loans to banks, the new quantitative easing programme will release 60 billion euros ($84.5 billion) a month into the economy, ECB President Mario Draghi said.

The move saw European and U.S. markets rally, with the Dow and S&P adding approximately 1.5% each.

There is no major local economic news slated for release today, but there Chinese HSBC Flash Manufacturing numbers out at 12:45pm, AEDT, which could impact the Aussie market.

Key numbers:

• SPI futures up 67pts at 5427
• AUD at 80.60 US cents, 95.45 Japanese yen, 70.93 Euro cents and 53.72 British pence
• In late trade, S&P 500 +1%, Dow +1.2%, Nasdaq +1.1%
• In Europe, Stoxx 50 +1.6%, FTSE +1%, CAC +1.5%, DAX +1.3%
• Spot gold up $US8.88 or 0.7% to $US1301.97 an ounce
• Iron ore slips 1.5% to $US66.79 per metric tonne
• Brent oil down 57 US cents or 1.2% to $US48.46 per barrel

What’s on today:

US December existing home sales, South Korea fourth-quarter GDP, US: General Electric, McDonalds quarterly profit.

Stocks to watch:

Deutsche Bank has a “hold” recommendation on Macquarie Group and a $62.60 target price.

RBC Capital Markets has an “underperform” rating on BHP Billiton and a $30 target price. The investment bank says there was a “mixed quarterly” report from the global miner with “the rig cut in the US Onshore business the key news”.

RBC Capital Markets has an “outperform” recommendation on Western Areas and a $5.50 target price. The broker flags “another solid operational quarter from WSA, with a strong cost performance the highlight. We continue to see WSA as a high quality exposure to positive nickel price dynamics.”

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