Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Nikkei was up 248.43 points at 9,838.75, while the Hang
Seng headed for the break up 386.58 points at 18,278.73.

Crude oil traded at $68.87 a barrel on Nymex.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. Market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

The pace of America's economic slowdown is beginning to temper, the Federal Reserve has declared, buoyed by recovering conditions in the financial markets and stabilising household spending.
US Federal Reserve says recession is 'easing'

The ECB on Wednesday pumped hundreds of billions of euros in one-year loans into the eurozones banking system, providing record amounts of emergency finance in a bid to unlock credit markets.
ECB pumps 442bn into banking system

The recession will end this year but Britains economy will endure a bout of stagnation, failing to grow at all next year, as the recovery proves weak and sluggish, the Wests leading official think-tank is predicting.
OECD warns of weak and sluggish UK growth

Quarterly figures from the CBI's distributive trades survey were the least negative for more than a year.
Worst of the retail slump may be over, says CBI

The number of homes changing hands continued to edge up during May as low interest rates and recent house price falls tempted buyers back to the market, new figures show.
More signs of life in the property market

Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland lost more money than any other bank in the world last year, a leading industry journal declared today. RBS's overall losses of 36 billion during a disastrous 2008 put it at the top of a list compiled by The Banker magazine, ahead of ailing US giant Citigroup.
RBS lost more than any other bank

The epic flows of the last few months into the United States Natural Gas Fund ETF may be very counter-intuitive as far as predicting an upturn in the price of natural gas. That, at least, is the message from Goldman Sachs on Wednesday, which sees natural gas prices remaining weak throughout the coming weeks.
Oil/gas ratio likely to stay high

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

KOSPI	VIX	GOLD	NYMEX CRUDE

BT.A Goldman: upgraded to neutral from sell, tp raised to 131 from 80
LGEN Merrill: upgraded to neutral from underperform
OML Merrill: underperform, tp raised to 70 from 65
PRU Merrill: reiterated buy, tp cut to 520 from 535
RIO UBS: reiterated buy
SL. Merrill: upgraded to buy from neutral
STAN BofA: upgraded to buy from neutral
STJ Merrill: underperform, tp raised to 180 from 165
TT. Citigroup: upgraded to buy from hold, tp raised to 290 from 255
VCT UBS: initiated neutral, tp 550
VOD Goldman: downgraded to buy from conviction buy, tp cut to 167 from 174

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