general election

After last week's payrolls report, the year is starting to wind down for economic events and capital markets, but not before one last hurrah for central banks: indeed, it is a very busy week dominated by central bank meetings for the FOMC, ECB, BOE, SNB and Norges Bank. We will also observe the controversial Alabama Senate elections and the EU Council summit on the state of Brexit negotiations. Data-wise, the most important economic update will be Wednesday's US CPI print, as well as industrial production releases in a number of countries including the US and China.

Once again weakness in the US carried through to Asia with stocks unable to hold any National-Team-inspired gains, but it was the contagion to commodities that was most notable (as a hike in exchange fees snuffed out a lot of speculative fervor)

• European equities have followed suit from their Asia-Pac counterparts to trade higher across the board
• Markets await Brexit headlines amid Barnier deadline
• Looking ahead, highlights include US weekly jobs and potential comments from ECB’s Draghi.

ASIA

Authored by Geert Wilders via The Gatestone Institute,

The Euro has jumped to a six week high following the latest record high print in the German IFO Business Climate index, which rose from 116.7 to 117.5 (exp.

Angela’s Merkel’s ability to restore her power in Germany should be decided in the next few days, as talks take place with Martin Schultz’s SPD.

In the meantime, Merkel’s ratings have unexpectedly “tanked” in the latest German polls. More than half of Germans believe she should not run for office in a poll conducted for t-online.com, as the Daily Express reports.