Asia

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.

Despite a disappointing US CPI report on Friday, which saw core inflation miss once again despite an expected spike due to the "hurricane effect", moments ago China reported that in September, its CPI printed at 1.6% Y/Y, in line with expectations, and down from, 1.8% in August largely due to high year-over-year base effects, but it was PPI to come in smoking hot, jumping from 6.3% last month to 6.9% Y/Y, slamming expectations of a 6.4% print and just shy of the highest forecast, driven by the recent surge in commodity costs and strong PMI surveys.

European politics returns with a bang this week, when not only will attention be focused on Austria to see if the right wing Freedom Party joins the People's Party in a historic governing coalition, in an embarrassing blow to Europe's establishment, but also whether Catalan President Puidgemont will (again) fomally - and this time clearly - announce whether he has declared independence as Spain's PM Rajoy demanded last week. Elsewhere, EU leaders meet on Thursday to discuss the progress of the Brexit talks and whether transition and trade negotiations can begin.

Via StockBoardAsset.com,

Regulatory Filings Suggest Elon Musk Is Planning a Secret Rocket Launch In Mid-November. 

According to Spaceflight Now, federal regulatory filings suggest SpaceX will launch a mysterious payload on a Falcon 9 rocket mid-November. Mainstream media remains silent on the event considering the payload is top secret. Filings indicate the payload has no public claim of ownership– from any government or private corporation.