Markets Overview

In the US, we will be interested to see whether initial jobless claims cansustain the low 287k reading seen last week, whilst the September industrialproduction, October Philly Fed manufacturing survey and OctoberNAHB housing index will also be released. The Philly Fed surveywill be especially interesting considering the decline in the NY Fed’ssurvey this month.

    All in all, we have a week to go before the pre-FOMC blackout period,so the Fed still has a few days to wait for the market to settle down beforedropping any hints. As it is, there were reports yesterday surfacingfrom a closed door meeting over the weekend that Fed Chair Yellenretained confidence in the US expansion’s sustainability amid foreignrisks.

    Yellen will be making a public appearance at around 1245am (Sporetime) but is not expected to make any remarks. However, four fairlyoutspoken regional Fed Presidents (Bullard, Kocherlakota, Lockhart,and Plosser) will all make public remarks before 1am. Last but not least,the corporate reporting includes Goldman Sachs (before the open) andGoogle (after the close).

    Today is a light day for Asian data, where China’s foreign direct investmentfor the month of September will be released and is expected tofall 14% y/y, similar to previous month.