Bell FX Currency Outlook:

The AUD has opened lower this morning, currently trading around USD1.0200, as investors caution over the European crisis continued
during the offshore session.

Australia: Equity markets were weaker in both Europe and the US, as continued poor bond results and an announcement by Italy's biggest bank indicated that it is likely to take more than the resignation of Prime Minister Berlusconi to fix the nation's problems. This saw a wave of safe haven
buying, which has seen the AUD fall over a cent since yesterday's close.

The DOW fell 0.7% and the S&P500 fell 1%. In Europe the results were much the same with the DAX falling 1.2% and the FTSE 100 weakening
by 0.5%. Gold also felt the effects of the safe haven trade into the USD with it falling to USD $1,780.70 per ounce. Today locally we have the
release of the minutes from the RBA's November meeting which saw the cash rate reduced by 0.25%.

Expect comments to focus on the continued global uncertainty surrounding Europe and the recent market volatility. Most of the focus today will be on any possible hints on whether this was a one off move to loosen monetary policy, or whether we can expect any
more interest rate cuts in the near future.

Italy's biggest bank - Uni Credit - continued the run of bad news overnight, announcing a record loss of EUR10.6bio for the third quarter. This was much worse than the markets were expecting and saw a selloff in financial stocks. As mentioned above, the poor bond results also added to the issues out of Italy overnight as their bond yields trended back upwards towards the unsustainable region of 7%.

It is viewed that anything above 6% is grounds for caution. In a Spanish bond auction last night their bond yields also broke through 6% which sparked concerns that Spain may be the next in the euro-zone debt crisis firing line.

Closer to home, yesterday saw the release of New Zealand's Retail Sales figures for the 3rd quarter. These results surprised on the upside posting a gain of 2.2% compared to expectations of a 0.6% rise. As a result we saw the NZD/USD rise nearly 1cent towards USD0.78