Bell FX Currency Outlook:
The AUD rallied yesterday after the Greek Parliament passed the austerity measures required by the European Commission, but failed to breach 1.0800.

Australia: Stock markets rallied overnight after the Greek Parliament passed the austerity measures required by the European Commission. The FTSE closed +0.9%, German DAX +0.7%, DOW+0.6% and S&P 500 +0.7%.The AUD has traded quietly between 1.0680 and 1.0780 over the past 24 hours.

RBA Assistant Governor, Guy Debelle spoke at a Bloomberg conference this morning in Sydney about the European effect
on Australian markets.

He said "while the fallout in Australia from Europe's sovereign-debt crisis has been limited, it's being felt in investors demanding much higher compensation for bank credit risk than they were in mid-2011."

Australia's four largest lenders have raised variable interest rates in recent days independent of the RBA. If we juxtapose this with
various job losses in retail and financial sectors and that fact Japan's Q4 GDP contracted by 0.6%, down1.0% over 2011.

This will make for an interesting RBA meeting in March. The only local economic release today is NAB business conditions/confidence released at 11.30AEST.

Majors: Following the successful vote in the Greek parliament there are still some more hurdles to clear before the EUR130bio bailout can proceed.
The EU finance ministers meet on Wednesday and require details on the process to implement EUR325bio of austerity measures and written agreement from the 3 Greek party leaders that the measures will proceed after the Greek elections in April. Following that a deal must be agreed with the private bondholders.

National parliaments in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands will need to vote on the second bailout package with Germany voting on February 27. Meanwhile in the US President Obama released a US$3.8 trillion budget with a forecast of US$1.33 trillion deficit. If this is passed by Congress, this will require a further debt ceiling limit increase before the November election. It will make for a fascinating election campaign and draw the attention of the ratings agencies.

Economic Calendar
14 FEB AU NAB Business Confidence/ Conditions
JN Industrial Production
US Retail Sales
US Import Price Index