- Israel said its army began the next phase of war against Hamas and intensified ground operations in northern Gaza over the weekend
- However, as there was no outside intervention and conflict did not spread to other parts of the region, some relief can be spotted on the markets at the beginning of a new week
- US and European index futures opened higher with DE30 trading 0.5% higher on the day and US500 advancing 0.1%
- Brent is trading 0.6% lower while US natural gas prices decline 0.2%
- Indices from Asia-Pacific are trading mixed today - Nikkei drops 1%, S&P/ASX 200 trades 0.8% lower while Kospi gains 0.5% and Nifty 50 adds 0.3%
- Chinese indices are trading 0.3-1.6% higher. More than 30 publicly traded companies from China announced buybacks over the weekend, suggesting that authorities may be encouraging institutions to support domestic stock market more
- ECB Vujcic said that the European Central Bank has finished hiking rates for now and said that a disinflation process is underway now. Vujcic said he is confident ECB will reach inflation target by 2025
- European Union and Australia failed to reach compromise on a number of sticking points in Free Trade Agreement negotiation
- Australian retail sales increased 0.9% MoM in September (exp. 0.3% MoM)
- Cryptocurrencies pull back - Bitcoin and Ethereum trade 1.1% lower, Dogecoin drops 1.7% and Ripple declines 1%
- Precious metals trade mixed - gold drops 0.2% and tests $2,000 area while silver gains 0.1% and trades above $23 per ounce
- AUD and NZD are the best performing major currencies while CHF and USD lag the most
DE30 is trading 0.5% higher at the beginning of a new week. Bulls attempt to prevent the index from dropping below the support zone marked with 38.2% retracement (14,800 pts area). Source: xStation5
