Remember a couple of weeks ago when the Australian dollar dipped under parity with the greenback and fell well under 98 USc?

We saw a plethora of gloomsters emerge warning that the dollar could fall even further, how this was a sign of things to come and how the currency would face uncertain times thanks to the rising tide of dangers from the Middle East and North Africa, the housing bubble and then the impact of Japan's triple tragedies.

Even at the weekend there were more reports telling us that Japan's woes would hurt us and how things were changing in financial markets.

And yet as we were reading these reports on Saturday morning, the