Good morning traders!

Markets in the US were closed yesterday for the President's Day holiday.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently up 490 points at 14,884 and the Hang Seng
off 23 points at 22,513.

WTI crude oil traded at $100.72 a barrel and Brent crude at $108.73.

Gold settled at $1,319 an ounce.

Good hunting!

G.

Opening Market Overview

EUR Current Account 21.3B 19.8B 23.3B

EUR Italian Trade Balance 3.62B 2.79B 3.09B

GBP CPI y/y 1.9% 2.0% 2.0%

GBP PPI Input m/m -0.9% -0.4% 0.1%

GBP RPI y/y 2.8% 2.7% 2.7%

GBP Core CPI y/y 1.6% 1.9% 1.7%

GBP HPI y/y 5.5% 5.8% 5.4%

GBP PPI Output m/m 0.3% 0.2% 0.0%

EUR German ZEW Economic Sentiment 55.7 61.3 61.7

EUR ZEW Economic Sentiment 68.5 73.9 73.3

Soros doubles a bearish bet on the S&P 500, to the tune of $1.3 billion

Soros Fund Management has doubled up a bet that the S&P 500 SPX is headed for a fall.

Within Friday’s 13F filings news was the revelation that the firm, founded by legendary investor George Soros, increased a put position on the S&P 500 ETF SPY -0.10% by a whopping 154% in the fourth quarter, compared with the third. (A put or short position basically gives the owner the right to sell a security at a set price for a limited time, and in making such a bet, an investor generally believes the security is going to decline.)

CAD Foreign Securities Purchases -4.28B 9.97B 9.07B

USD Empire State Manufacturing Index 4.5 9.9 12.5

USD NAHB Housing Market Index 46 56 56