European Central Bank

World stocks stayed near peaks and currencies moved in tight ranges on Wednesday as China’s 19th Communist Party Congress opened while focus in Europe turned to speeches from top euro zone central bankers before next week’s key policy meeting, as well as Catalonia's ultimatum due on Thursday. S&P futures are solidly in the green as usual, with Dow futures jumping above 23,000, driven higher by IBM as investors looked for new reasons to extend gains after hitting new all-time highs Tuesday.

Global markets traded near all-time highs on Tuesday, with S&P futures, Asian shares and European stocks all flat this morning, while oil continued to gain on Kurdish geopolitical concerns while most industrial metals fell.  The euro extended its recent slide and stocks drifted as Spain’s escalating hard-line response to the Catalonian secession threat fueled concern the crisis may intensify.

After seemingly sending out trial balloons (via Bloomberg and Reuters simultaneously) on tapering last Thursday, which had almost zero impact (see “ECB Reportedly Considering Slashing QE in Half in January, EURUSD Shrugs), Draghi’s minions have been busy again.

World stocks and commodities rose on Monday, boosted by upbeat Chinese data, while U.S. oil futures jumped to a near six-month high as escalating tensions between the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces threatened supply.  Global markets digested the large amount of weekend newsflow, and clearly liked what they saw as S&P futures were modestly in the green, as both European and Asian stocks are higher.

It was supposed to come with a "bang." Instead, the double trial balloon launched by the ECB on Thursday night, delivered at the same time by both Reuters and Bloomberg to make sure that everyone got it and according to which the ECB was considering slashing its QE in half from €60 billion to €30 billion and keeping the program active for at least 9 months, revealed one of the biggest market reaction "whimpers" to an ECB leak in years.

For those who missed it, here again are the bullets: