Local bourse off to soft start The Australian share market has opened slightly lower following falls on Wall Street overnight. At 1017 AEDT on Thursday, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down seven points, or 0.13 per cent, at 5,309, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 6.9 points, or 0.13 per cent, at 5,311.8. What you need2know this Thursday morning: SPI futures down 11 points AUD is at 89.11 US cents, 93.34 yen, 65.61 euro cents, 54.16 pence On Wall St, S&P500 -0.2%, Dow Jones -0.6%, Nasdaq flat In Europe, Eurostoxx flat, FTSE100 -0.5, CAC -0.04%, DAX -0.1% Spot gold: $US1226.89 an ounce Brent oil: $US107.31 per barrel Iron ore: $US131.50 per tonne The Fed minutes laid out the central bank's rationale for cutting purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to $US75 billion a month from $US85 billion starting this month. Those purchases have helped lower interest rates. As the economic outlook has improved, the expectation is for reduced stimulus. Better hopes for U.S. growth have driven investors to the dollar, which reached a six-week high against a basket of six major currencies. "On balance, the fact that the minutes do not meaningfully alter the outlook for a gradual and steady reduction in Fed stimulus remains positive for the dollar," said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange. Indeed, as the tone of economic data improves, there is a risk that the Fed could become more aggressive in its reduction of monetary stimulus. Many members of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee wanted to proceed with caution in trimming the asset purchases, and most wanted to stress that further reductions were not on a preset course. Local retail trade and building approvals, both for November, are set to be released today. Credit Suisse has forecast Australian equities to provide a total return of 9 per cent in 2014. While the outlook is positive, our forecasts remain low compared to other markets around the world. Both our global and asian region strategists are "underweight Australian equities," the bank said. CitiGroup upgraded Oil Search to "neutral" with a 12-month target price of $8.42 a share. "Our preference order in the large caps remains Santos, Woodside and then Oil Search," CitiGroup said. It maintained "buy" recommendations on Santos, Woodside and AWE. We've got your playbook for the market in 2014 right here. The US dollar last traded 0.2 per cent higher at 104.84 yen, down from an earlier high of 105.12 yen, but above Monday's two-week low of 103.88. Last week the dollar reached a five-year high of 105.44 yen. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, reached a six-week high of 81.048 and was last up 0.1 per cent on the day at 80.928 . Copper was little changed as a strong dollar and concerns about economic recovery in China were offset by expectations for strong U.S. growth. Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange dipped 0.01 per cent at $US7350.25 a tonne by 1013 GMT, after falling to a near two week low of $US7278.75 a tonne on Monday. Copper is trading flat for the year so far, after losing about 7 per cent of its value in 2013. The Dow and the S&P 500 declined modestly on Wednesday afternoon as investors awaited the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent policy meeting. US private-sector employers added 238,000 jobs in December, more than expected and the best read since November 2012, while November 2013 numbers were revised higher, according to a report by ADP, a payrolls processor. Microsoft is closer to naming a new chief executive officer, according to a source familiar with the board's thinking, but it lost a front-runner candidate on Tuesday when Ford's CEO Alan Mulally said he would not be going to the software giant. European stocks paused on Wednesday around 5-1/2 year highs, but rising confidence that peripheral euro zone economies are starting to recover from the region's debt crisis helped markets there extend a rally. Trading volumes on Portugal's PSI 20 benchmark share index were seven times the daily average, while turnover on the main Madrid and Dublin indices were more than twice their daily averages, according to Thomson Reuters data. The STOXX euro zone bank index gained 1.8 per cent, extending its rally so far this year to 6.2 per cent, about a quarter of its gains for the whole of 2013. Spain's Banco Popular jumped 8.9 per cent, Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo rose 2.2 per cent and Portugal's Millennium BCP gained 2.7 per cent. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 Index dipped one-tenth of a point on ­Wednesday to 5316, as big falls from mining stocks and three of the big four banks offset gains in healthcare, energy and retail. BusinessDay, Reuters