Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow lost 53 points at 8,422, the S&P500 fell 5 points to
903 and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 7 points to 1,728.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was down 120.75 points at 9,223.89, while the Hang
Seng ended the morning session off 159.35 points at 17,316.49.

Crude oil traded at $61.57 a barrel on Nymex.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all. Market reports:

Telegraph
The Times
The Times (Need to know)
FT
The Guardian
The Independent

But the latest minutes of the Federal Open Market Committe, released at 14H ET on Wednesday, suggest the Feds outlook is far less optimistic than Bernanke let on - and contrast strikingly with upbeat testimony from Timothy Geithner delivered earlier in the day.
Forget those green shoots - Fed seeing mostly weeds in 2009

Ratings agencies continue to aggressively review their ratings on global banks, as exemplified by a slew of announcements coming out of Moodys on Wednesday.
Moodys warns on Asian banks

Japan may be the first leading economy to fall officially from recession into depression, with GDP shrinking at an annual rate of almost 10 per cent as its export-focused business model is tested to the limit.
Plunge in Japans GDP takes it close to depression and raises prospect of deflation returning

Alistair Darling must stand ready to pump more capital into Britain's beleaguered banks, perhaps nationalising other high street names, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
More banks may have to be nationalised, says IMF

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has signalled it might seek to extend its programme of pumping new money into the economy beyond the current 150bn limit set by the Treasury.
Bank of England signals it may pump billions more into the economy

We know the dollar has been losing value over the last few weeks. However on Wednesday the intra-day plunge in the dollar index was slightly more severe.
A dollar dive, and finally a gold-bug reaction

Investment experts across the world believe that the global economy has turned the corner, with a sizeable majority betting that it will pick up in the next 12 months.
Fund managers bet on a bull market as they call the global upturn

Businesses and housebuyers are still struggling to secure loans and mortgages despite the government spending billions to get credit markets flowing again.
Banking bailouts have done little to ease credit crunch

NIKKEI 225	AUSTRALIA ASX200	SHANGHAI	HANG SENG

KOSPI	VIX	GOLD	NYMEX CRUDE

BDEV Credit Suisse: upgraded to outperform, tp raised to 191 from 75
DLAR UBS: downgraded to sell from neutral
DSGI Morgan Stanley: reiterated equalweight, tp cut to 31 from 50
GPOR HSBC: reiterated underweight, tp cut to 145 from 160
GSK ING: upgraded to hold from sell, tp reiterated 1074
KESA Citigroup: buy, tp 150
LMI Citigroup: hold, tp raised to 1385 from 859
PSN Credit Suisse: reiterated neutral, tp raised to 343 from 185
SAB HSBC: reiterated neutral, tp raised to 1350 from 1240
TW. Credit Suisse: upgraded to outperform, tp raised to 42 from 10
VOD Nomura: downgraded to reduce from buy, tp cut to 140
YELL Citigroup: hold, tp 70

All,

Just received this from our feed supplier - seems the FTSE indices prices are having problems at the exchange at the moment:

"FTSE Indices feed updates inconsistently at the moment. Issue started at appx. 08.10 BST.

We have contacted the Source who have confirmed that there is currently a data delivery issue at their side.

We will keep you updated."

Ian

Re my earlier message about FTSE indices - just received notification from our suppliers that it is resolved -

"Issue with the FTSE indices have now been resolved at the Exchange side."

End-of-day Market Overview