European Morning Market Wrap-Up

European Market Wrap-Up

Economic Data

Brandenburg -0.3% m/m -0.4% y/y

Hesse -0.5% m/m -0.8% y/y

Saxony -0.3% m/m -0.3% y/y

NRW (Northern Rhine Westphalia) -0.3% m/m from +0.3% in August

Baden-Wuerttemberg -0.4% m/m -0.3% y/y from +0.4%, +0.1% in August

Comments

Angel Merkel wins re-election in Germany, said she’ll press ahead with tax cuts and labor-market deregulation after winning re-election with enough support to govern probably with the pro-business Free Democrats.
Iran reported test fires medium range missiles. More tension ahead of Thursday’s crucial meeting in Geneva between Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers, including the United States following the disclosure last week that Iran was building a second nuclear enrichment plant south of Tehran.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, in his keynote speech at the annual Labour Party Conference, will tell banks: “There will be no return to business as usual.” He will blame recklessness by bankers for plunging the global financial system into the credit crunch and economic crisis.
The final communiqué from G20 will be released later today, but there appears to be little concrete action regarding the compensation curbs in the finance sector. The members did agree to tighten rules regarding bank capital levels, but the overall focus of the meeting appears to have been on preserving the present status quo of stimulus spending rather than creating a massive regulatory overhaul of the global financial system.
Highlights of Alistair Darling’s speech see previous post.

Currencies

Euro dollar opened up on the session low and drifted higher to around 1.4630 before dipping lower as to 1.4605 as the European stock market started to follow the moves made by the Asian stock market. Euro seemed to find a base at that level, (bids at 1.4600 possibly?) before finding a temporary home between 1.4625-35. A final push in the last few minutes higher to 1.4660.
The Yen trading with a firm tone against all currencies but compacted into a tight range compared to the Asian opening session. .
Sterling starting the session at its low of 1.5780 edging higher all the time would suffer minor corrections but then would rally higher. A move lower on selling of sterling on the London fix and weak UK housing numbers was short lived and sterling continued the push to a high of 1.5910 before profit taking brought it back below 1.5900.

Ranges

Stock Markets