Cyprus bailout drags Australian dollar lower THE Australian dollar was slightly lower as weak US consumer sentiment figures and concerns about the Cyprus bank bailout weighed on market sentiment. At 7am AEDT the local unit was trading at 103.58 US cents, down from 103.69 cents on Friday. Since 5pm AEDT on Friday, the Australian dollar traded between 103.34 US cents and 104.17 cents. As a condition for a 10 billion euro ($12.6 billion) bailout for Cyprus, a 9.9 per cent levy will be imposed on deposits of more than 100,000 euros in the island's banks. US consumer confidence figures releases in Friday in the United States showed a fall in February to its lowest level since December 2011. Westpac New Zealand senior market strategist Imre Speizer said these two factors caused share markets and the Australian dollar to fall at the end of last week. "There was a slightly risk-averse tone on Friday night," he said. That hurt global stocks. Mr Speizer said the Cyprus bailout is likely to be the main negative for markets today. "Cyprus is getting a bailout but people have to stump up money to pay for it, so they're going to hit depositors and banks," he said. That's bad because it's involuntary because it could cause a flight from the Cyprus banking system. If it's a template for future bailouts then it could lead someone to think they might do this in Italy. It hasn't happened yet, obviously but this thinking is what's driving risk aversion. Mr Speizer said he expects the Australian dollar to trade in a range between 103.00 US cents and 103.95 cents today.