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• Unease over Fed rate path dents European stocks (Reuters)
• Global Stocks Pressured After Fed Statement (WSJ)
• Japan's Economy Minister Amari to Resign Over Graft Scandal (BBG)
• Authorities working to clear remaining protesters in Oregon occupation (Reuters)
• China Sharpens Efforts to Halt Money Outflow (WSJ)
• Eurozone January Economic Sentiment Falls Sharply, Hits 5-Mth Low (MNI)
• Glencore Said to Store Oil in Ships Off Singapore Amid Contango (BBG)
• Investors Hedge Bets on Crude-Oil Revival (WSJ)

While the focus in the overnight session has traditionally been about two things, namely oil and China, today one can also throw in AAPL which is down 4% in the pre-market after its disappointing earnings yesterday in which it confirmed our channel-checked warnings about China from last summer, and the Fed which is set to release the January FOMC statement this afternoon.

With European markets increasingly jittery on Italian bank concerns, now that after 7 years of build up those staggering Italian non-performing loans were finally noticed by traders, resulting in speculation that the creation of an Italian bad bank is imminent, overnight Citi's Azzurra Guelfi released a note trying to qualify just how exposed Italian banks are to rising bad loans, and quantify which banks have the most exposure.

Yesterday we felt like a brief moment of gloating was deserved, when we noted that, based on the WSJ's reporting, the somber mood among Davos "prominent investors" and billionaires was "irritated, bordering on affronted, with what they say has been central-bank intervention that has gone on too long.... from this anecdotal sampling, at least, that has created growing distortions in nearly all asset prices—from stocks to bonds to real estate."

In a world in which every nation is now part of the race to debase their currency, or as the Brazilian finance minister first dubbed it in 2010, a "global currency war", the first and foremost imperative on every central bank's agenda is to devalue its currency faster than its net exporting peers.