Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow fell 25 points at 11,179, the Nasdaq rose 14 points at 2,532
and the S&P500 shed 2 points at 1,198.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was last up 93 points at 10,115, while the Hang Seng ended the
morning down 420 points at 23,103.

Crude oil traded at $81.32 a barrel on Nymex.

Gold settled at $1,360 an ounce.

Happy trading!

G.

Morning folks. According to what I'm seeing live on the news here in Korea - we have a proper shooting war going on this afternoon - not much reaction from the FTSE yet. A South Korean island has been hit by Northern artillery and I'm seeing extensive fires - no word on casualties yet. This looks a bit more serious than the usual occasional limited exchanges of fire. This will probably blow over but the day of reckoning with North Korea draws ever closer.

edit:

ADN Deutsche: initiated buy, tp 210
ASC Goldman: conviction buy, tp raised to 2000 from 1700
AV. Jeffries: initiated buy, tp 452
BP. ING: reiterated buy, tp reiterated 712
BVIC Nomura: reiterated buy, tp reiterated 600
BYG Goldman: buy, tp reiterated 392
EMG Deutsche: initiated buy, tp 330
FCAM Deutsche: initiated hold, tp 74
GNK Goldman: reiterated buy, tp reiterated 540
GRT Deutsche: initiated hold, tp 120
JMAT UBS: upgraded to neutral from sell
LAM RBS: hold, tp raised to 315 from 275
LLOY Deutsche: reiterated buy, tp 100
MTO RBS: buy, tp cut to 270 from 290
RBS UBS [HB]: upgraded to buy from neutral, tp cut to 48 from 56
SAB ING: reiterated sell, tp cut to 1780 from 1800
SDR Deutsche: initiated buy, tp 1925
TALK Credit Suisse: upgraded to outperform from neutral

End-of-day Market Overview