Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow fell 127 points at 14,995, the Nasdaq lost 37 points at
3,400 and the S&P500 shed 13 points at 1,613.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently down 558 points (4.3%) at 12,731 and the Hang
Seng off 572 points (2.7%) at 20,782.

WTI crude oil traded at $95.67 a barrel and Brent crude at $103.49.

Gold settled at $1,389 an ounce.

Good hunting!

G.

The Greeks are revolting (again) - Greeks strike over state TV closure as backlash grows

(Reuters) - Greek workers stage a nationwide strike on Thursday, forcing hospitals to work on emergency staff and disrupting transport, in protest against the "sudden death" of state broadcaster ERT, switched off in the middle of the night by the government.

Greece's two biggest labour unions plan to bring much of the near-bankrupt country to a standstill during the 24-hour strike against Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's decision to close down ERT, which they describe as "coup-like move... to gag unbiased information."

Japanese stocks lead rout in Asia, dollar slumps on Fed uncertainty

TOKYO | Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:23am BST
(Reuters) - Japanese stocks dived into bear market territory and Asian shares hit new 2013 lows on Thursday as the prospect of reduced stimulus from central banks rattled investors, triggering a broad sell-off from riskier assets.

The tumult in global markets also sent the dollar skidding as uncertainty about whether the Federal Reserve would scale back its massive stimulus and the slide in Japanese shares forced a clean-out of long-dollar positions.

Royal Bank of Scotland jobs to go as boss Stephen Hester quits

Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to announce 2,000 job losses later, after it emerged its boss Stephen Hester is to quit after five years in the job.

The cuts are expected to be spread worldwide as the investment division is pruned, with some jobs going in the UK.

Mr Hester has said he would have liked to stay on as boss until the bank - 81% publicly owned - was reprivatised.

FTSE100 opens sharply lower with RBS the worst casualty

ECB MONTHLY BULLETIN JUNE 2013

FTSE 100 remains sharply lower in busy midday trade

USD Retail Sales m/m 0.6% 0.4% 0.1%

CAD NHPI m/m 0.2% 0.3% 0.1%

CAD Capacity Utilization Rate 81.1% 81.3% 80.7%

USD Core Retail Sales m/m 0.3% 0.3% -0.2%

USD Unemployment Claims 334K 354K 346K

USD Import Prices m/m -0.6% 0.0% -0.5%

USD Business Inventories m/m 0.3% 0.3% 0.0%

Hello skinny, I thought the new Gold thread was going to be
a 'gold' thread. Not so, it seems. More chat than gold, I think.
I suppose, I am used to the MAM style of posting!!!
But, hey, each to his own. Sorry to have bothered you, though.
But I do like your charts and input here. Tremendous stuff.
Kyoto (do you remember him?) used to add some useful
stuff every morning.You've taken over from him nicely and
Greystone's slot is a good way to start the day
for 'late' morning starters.

Hi Midknight - yes I remember Kyoto well.

This is Greystone's thread - all I've started doing is adding bits that I look at anyway - I was posting it on the FTSE250 thread, but as most of it is only of relevance/interest on the day, it seemed better to post it here rather than clutter the latter up with inherently redundant info.

FTSE100 ends the day little changed as the miners rally