Good morning. Here's what you need to know.
  • Asian markets were mixed in overnight trading with the Nikkei tumbling 2 percent and the Shanghai Composite rising 0.2 percent. European markets are in the red with Spain down 0.7 percent, and U.S. stock futures are down slightly.


  • Taiwanese exports, viewed as a proxy for the health of the Chinese economy, posted a sharp increase of 10.2 percent year-over-year in September. The increase was well above consensus estimates of a 1 percent rise as well as August's 4.2 percent contraction. However, the big gain may have been due to holiday seasonality.


  • China's top banking and finance officials will not attend the annual IMF and World Bank meetings in Tokyo this week in what has been deemed a "snub" of Japan. Relations between the two countries have been tense recently as a territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has escalated.

  • Alcoa cut its global demand forecast for aluminum to 6 percent in 2012 from 7 percent when the company released its Q3 earnings results, citing the slowdown in China. Alcoa beat estimates on both profits and sales. 

  • Toyota announced a recall of 7.4 million vehicles worldwide – the biggest global auto recall since 1996. The recall aims to address sticky window switches and includes 2.5 million vehicles in the United States. 

  • At 2:00 PM the Federal Reserve releases the October Beige Book report, which will give a glimpse of regional economic conditions around the United States.

  • Turkey is deploying 25 F-16 fighter jets to the country's border with Syria in an apparent escalation of the conflict the two nations have recently engaged in. The two countries have shelled each other for eight days, and NATO yesterday declared it was ready to defend Turkey.