Good morning traders!

In the US Friday, the Dow fell 209 points at 15,116, the Nasdaq shed 35 points at
3,456 and the S&P500 lost 23 points at 1,631.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently down 364 points at 13,410 and the Hang Seng
ahead 107 points at 22,499.

WTI crude oil traded at $91.61 a barrel and Brent crude at $100.39.

Gold settled at $1,390 an ounce.

Happy Monday!

G.

Ed Balls, anti-austerity finance chief in waiting

(Reuters) - Critic-in-chief of the government's strategy to revive the weak British economy, on the face of it Ed Balls looks like he may be winning the argument ahead of elections due in 2015.

His opposition Labour party leads the ruling Conservatives by up to 10 percentage points in the polls, the economy is struggling to grow in the face of the government's radical budget cuts, and the International Monetary Fund has backed his long-held view that more capital spending is needed sooner.

But Labour's would-be chancellor, an influential member of the previous left-leaning government, is aware that many believe Labour should be much further ahead in the polls given the economic pain voters have endured.

Signs of modest growth are also starting to emerge, something that, if sustained, could undermine his argument, and he has the tricky task of convincing voters his party can be trusted to run the economy again.

Spanish Manufacturing PMI 48.1 45.5 44.7

CHF SVME PMI 52.2 50.9 50.2

EUR Italian Manufacturing PMI 47.3 46.2 45.5

FTSE 100 moves firmly lower in early deals this morning

EUR Final Manufacturing PMI 48.3 47.8 47.8

GBP Manufacturing PMI 51.3 50.3 49.8

Some good news for the UK economy on moving over 50..........

UK April PMI Manufacturing revised up to 50.2 from 49.8

WATCH LIVE: Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls speaking at Thomson Reuters

FTSE 100 culls losses by midday after upbeat UK data

USD Final Manufacturing PMI 52.3 52.0 52.0

skinny, thanks for updating the Nikkei and gold charts
here regularly. Much appreciated.

USD ISM Manufacturing PMI 49.0 50.6 50.7

USD Construction Spending m/m 0.4% 1.1% -0.8%

USD ISM Manufacturing Prices 49.5 49.6 50.0

Nikkei currently available @ under 13K

FTSE 100 ends firmly lower on fears over US QE tapering