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The Australian dollar’s recent strength continued yesterday, helped by an about turn on local interest rates by one of the big bears of the markets, Westpac’s chief economist, Bill Evans.

Here’s China’s next stimulus plan for the economy – it’s embedded in the Chinese government’s “National New-type Urbanisation Plan", which was released on Sunday, which calls for a massive build-out of transport networks, urban infrastructure and residential real estate from now until 2020.

All eyes will be on Russia this morning for reaction to yesterday’s ‘yes’ vote in Crimea on succession from Ukraine.

Oil and gold will lead the reaction to events in Ukraine today in commodity markets.

If you had to pick the oddest event in the markets last week, so far as Australia is concerned, it was the continuing strength of the dollar.

Ukraine will dominate markets and the week from today, overshadowing a solid week of major figures in some economies.

A sharp jump in full time jobs underlines the case for ignoring the seasonally adjusted employment data and watching the trend series in the February report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday.

Markets around the world fell sharply overnight after another bout of weak economic news from China, which have again hinted that the economy could be slowing more sharply than it seems.

Meanwhile Wall Street closed this morning all but steady after those big losses in European and Asian markets yesterday and overnight.

The strong New Zealand economy has seen the country’s central bank lift interest rates this morning by a quarter of a per cent to 2.75%, the first movement in rates for three years. And the bank left markets in no doubt that more rate rises are in the offing.

The warming up of the US stockmarket for a big downturn in bank profits for the three months to March 31 continues.

Weak consumer confidence for March and a solid report on home lending for January cancelled each other out yesterday – now it’s the February jobs report later this morning for investors to contend with, while across the Tasman Kiwis are coming to terms with their first interest rate rise for three years.

The surprise two month improvement in business conditions found by the National Australia Bank in its monthly surveys, seems to have petered out, according to the latest survey from the bank.

If the current Federal Government changes the media laws to allow for a new round of deals – such as mergers/takeovers – there’s only one bit of advice to follow – consider the past, rotten record of media takeovers, take the money and invest it in a company that will earning profits and pay dividends for a while to come – such as a bank.

After last week, a bit of a breather for markets, investors and others with the flow of news and data more patchy and less important.

Comex gold futures in New York closed 1% lower on Friday night, our time, after suffering their biggest one-day loss in more than a week.

Believe it or not, the Australian market had another week of relative outperformance last week.

Apparently weak February trade data for China will get the gloomsters and bears licking their lips today, but they should hang on for a month or two to see if February’s big fall in exports is repeated in March and April.