• German Oct IFO business sentiment 106.4 (exp 106.03) vs107.50 in Sep
  • UK Sep PSNB ex-fin £14.138 bln (exp 15 bln) vs 15.411 bln Sep 2010
  • ECB’s Trichet: Low CPI still a challenge for some eastern European states
  • Merkel spokesperson: Expects EU summit to take place on Wednesday evening
  • ECB’s Nowotny: ECB discussed cutting rates at the last meeting.
  • BOJ Gov Shirakawa: Japan’s economic activity is picking up..
  • Risk to growth the biggest worry – Ex PBOC advisor
  • EU’s Rehn: Working intensively on ways to strengthen EFSF
  • S&P sees downgrade blitz in EMU recession, threatening crisis strategy
  • ECB’s Stark: ECB doing what it can to tackle EU debt crisis
  • Fitch’s Riley: No plans to downgrade France
  • ECB’s Nowotny: EU debt problems are a “warning for all of us”
  • Austrian Fin Min Fekter: Welcomes bigger private sector involvement in 2nd Greek rescue package
  • ECB/BOP’s Costa: Important for all EU states to tighten fiscal discipline

All much of a nothingness this morning with the usual conflicting comments from EU ministers desperate to air their views, result in nothing of note.

EUR/USD was sold off on the European open from from 1.3800 initially on softer French manufacturing data, corporate sales and comments from Nowotny that a rate cut was discussed at the last ECB meeting. Euro fell to 1.3704 before buyers emerged and a short squeeze reversed to 1.3789 despite softer German IFO data.

GBP/USD lagged the euro fall as EUR/GBP fell from 0.8729 to 0.8696, but also lagged the rally as the cross picked up to 0.8724. Cable traded 1.5754-1.5821 and was unmoved by the borrowing data..

EUR/CHF carried on the fall from Asia where stops were triggered on a drop down through 1.2300, and USD/CHF through 0.8900. Both cratered at 1.2211 and 0.8883, before a short squeeze saw a quick bounce back to 1.2303 and 0,8952. A large German bank seen in the swaps leading to spurious rumours of SNB intervention,

USD/JPY failed to ignite in a 76.65-76 range and EUR/JPY followed EUR/USD through a 105.08-91 range.

AUD/USD was particularly quiet in between 1.0206-56.

Commodites also took a breather with December WTI content around 86.40 and Gold stable around 1625

European stocks were relatively quiet posting small gains- STOXX 0.6%, FTSE 0.6%, CAC 0.5% and DAX 0.4%