Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow fell 10 points to 15,875, the Nasdaq shed 6 points at
4,024 and the S&P500 lost 6 points at 1,781.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently up 285 points at 15,563 and the Hang Seng
ahead 85 points at 23,155.

WTI crude oil traded at $97.22 a barrel and Brent crude at $110.41.

Gold settled a $1,231 an ounce.

Good hunting!

G.

Three reasons the Fed should taper QE3

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — With the unemployment rate too high and inflation too low, the U.S. economy still has its problems, but it’s time for the Federal Reserve to end its large-scale asset purchase program, also known as quantitative easing 3.0, or QE3.

The Fed meets on Tuesday and Wednesday to consider tapering the number of bonds that it buys every month from the current $85 billion to perhaps $75 billion as a prelude to winding up the program completely sometime in 2014.

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FTSE / DOW

Opening Market Overview

German Ifo Business Climate 109.5 109.7 109.3

GBP Claimant Count Change -36.7K -35.2K -42.8K

GBP MPC Asset Purchase Facility Votes 0-0-9 0-0-9 0-0-9

GBP MPC Official Bank Rate Votes 0-0-9 0-0-9 0-0-9

GBP Unemployment Rate 7.4% 7.6% 7.6%

GBP Average Earnings Index 3m/y 0.9% 0.8% 0.8%

CHF ZEW Economic Expectations 39.4 31.6

Midday Market Overview

CAD Wholesale Sales m/m 1.4% 0.4% 0.0%

USD Building Permits 1.01M 0.99M 1.04M

USD Housing Starts 1.09M 0.95M 0.89M

End-of-day Market Overview