keira knightley
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Good morning. Here's what you need to know.
  • Asian markets were higher in overnight trading, with the Nikkei up a slight 0.04 percent and the Shanghai Composite rising 0.4 percent. Most of Europe is trading lower save for Spain, which is flat. In the United States, Dow futures are up 47 points and S&P 500 futures are up 6 points.

  • Japan has averted its own fiscal cliff after the government agreed to pass a budget bill that is analogous to raising its debt ceiling. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also announced that he will dissolve parliament on Friday, November 16. This will trigger elections in the next 40 days that will see likely see a transition of power to the opposition party and give the country a seventh leader since 2006.

  • China's leadership transition is nearly complete after the Communist Party named the members of its Central Committee and formally ended the 18th Party Congress. The Central Committee will meet Thursday to announce who will be on the Politburo Standing Committee, an even smaller subset of powerful figures that comprise the country's top leadership.

  • Greece released another quarter of depressing GDP numbers, saying the economy shrank 7.2 percent in Q3 from a year ago. This marks Greece's deepest contraction yet and highlights the disconnect between reality and the government's budget assumptions of a 6.5 percent contraction.

  • Anti-austerity strikes and protests have spread across Europe today, engulfing Spain, Greece, Italy, and Portugal. Organized by national unions, the international strikes mark the biggest coordinated display against austerity yet seen in Europe.


  • In its quarterly report today, the Bank of England downgraded its growth forecast for 2013 to around 1 percent. Furthermore, it said it expects inflation will not come back down to the 2 percent target rate until the sce ond half of 2013.

  • In his first move in fiscal cliff negotiations, President Obama is asking for $1.6 trillion in new taxes on the wealthy, twice what he proposed in 2011. The president is driving a hard line on the tax issue but has not discussed possible changes to programs like Social Security and Medicare.

  • In the United States, monthly retail sales figures and the producer price index are due out at 8:30 AM ET, followed by business inventories at 10 AM. Economists expect a 0.2 percent decrease in retail sales from last month, a 2.6 percent rise in PPI from last year, and a 0.5 percent rise in inventories from last month. 

  • The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its October FOMC meeting at 2:00 PM ET. Several Fed governors, perhaps most notably Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen, have advocated in recent weeks tying the size and duration of monetary policy programs explicitly to quantitative targets. Market participants will be looking for hints that this idea may be entering the discussion.