Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is little changed from Friday's level as it appears most attention is directed to the vote in the Crimea and its potential implications.

Australia: The AUD has opened up around the .9000 level this morning as most exit polls in the Crimea indicate that over 90% of voters have voted to rejoin Russia.

With the US refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the referendum and threatening sanctions, political concerns remain heightened and equity markets wary of what the result might mean for geopolitical tensions around the world.

US Treasury securities that are held at the US Federal Reserve fell by USD104bn for the week ending March 12 and it is thought Russia played a large part in the fall since they held USD136bn at the end of December, 2013. It looks like the political outlook will dominate trading this week after the avalanche of data last week.

Locally the highlights to keep in mind are the release of the RBA minutes on Tuesday and the RBA's Quarterly Bulletin on Thursday. We would expect the AUD to move lower in general this week but we must be aware the general market is very short the AUD and any surprise announcement can squeeze the "shorts" and see the AUD move quickly higher.

Majors: On Friday in the US, the preliminary consumer confidence figures for March from the University of Michigan saw the index retreat to 79.9 from February's level of 81.6. Producer Price Index (PPI) figures for February saw a decrease of 0.2% and only an increase of 1.1% for the last 12 months indicating inflation is not an issue for financial markets.

Employment in the Eurozone for the last quarter (Q4 of 2013) rose 0.1% as compared to the yoy figure which fell 0.5%. On the weekend China officially widened the trading band width on their local currency from 1% to 2%.

This again is another step toward more free market trading in the Yuan. There is a report that the US FDIC will be looking at up to 12 banks for their possible role in the manipulation of LIBOR rate settings in the years 2007-2011.

On Wednesday night new US Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen will be giving her first press conference after the FOMC meeting and most analysts believe the continued tapering program of USD10bn per month will not change.

Economic Calendar

14 MAR AU New Motor Vehicle Sales MoM Mar

EC CPI MoM / YoY Feb

US Empire Manufacturing Mar

US Industrial Production MoM Mar

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