Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Nikkei was up 26.7 points at 8,256.85, while the Hang Seng
was down 9.81 points at 13,245.7 at the midpoint.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. Friday's market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
FT
The Guardian
The Independent
This is Money

Saturday

The US government is investigating new ways of addressing continued dislocation in the US banking sector, contemplating a second round of investment in the hope of reducing banks' exposures to "toxic" illiquid assets.
US looks at fresh bank investment after $26bn losses

The financial sector is again in crisis and the Treasury and its advisers are expected to work solidly over the next 48 hours so they have a blueprint prepared for when the markets open on Monday, ready to deal with banks' slumping share prices and widespread fears about the toxic assets on their books. Britain's banks are expecting to be told their fate by the Treasury on Sunday afternoon, with news about what form a bad bank would take.
Treasury to burn midnight oil on 'bad bank' scheme

The Government is planning to use nationalised lender Northern Rock as a "good bank" to ratchet up lending to consumers and businesses as part of its most dramatic offensive so far to stop the economic downturn.
Government will use Northern Rock to boost lending

Bernard Madoff's investment fund may never have passed a single share trade through his market-making business, it may have never traded at all.
Bernard Madoff's investment fund 'never traded'

Sunday

Britain's banks are close to revealing writedowns of at least 40bn as the financial crisis looks to be entering a dangerous new phase following a huge sell-off in the shares of Barclays and other banks on Friday. The government is close to unveiling fresh measures to shore up the system.
Banks braced for 40bn in writedowns

Royal Bank of Scotland will convert the 5bn of preference shares it has sold to the Treasury into ordinary shares, the BBC's Robert Peston has learned.
Public stake in RBS to increase

Monday

Speculation that the Obama administration could announce fresh plans to clean up US banks within days of taking office next week grew on the weekend after a top regulator called for a special bank to be set up to unblock the system.
Backing grows for US bad bank plan

Royal Bank of Scotland is today expected to unveil a loss of up to 27bn for 2008, as it writes down risky assets and about 20bn of goodwill from its ill-fated acquisition of ABN Amro and other deals of recent years.
Investor puts pressure on HSBC to let US sub-prime unit go bankrupt

A leading Irish economist has called on Dublin to threaten withdrawal from the euro unless Europe's big powers do more to rescue Ireland's economy.
Help Ireland or it will exit euro, economist warns

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

KOSPI	VIX

End-of-day Market Overview