S&P 500 extended the record run overnight and closed 5.91 pts higher at 2069.41 while DJIA also rose 7.84pts at 17817.9. Nikkei followed and played catch up after holiday, and is trading mildly higher up 50 pts at the time of writing. Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher said that he could see inflation climbing up to 2% target. More importantly, he could see inflation "even running over that for a little while" as long as long-term expectations were well anchored. Fisher is known as the most hawkish Fed member but he's set to retire early next year.
In Europe, Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann said that the debate about QE was "distracting our attention from the true problems." And, he urged that "instead of focusing on the purchasing programme, we should focus on how you find growth." And here warned that "there is a prohibition of monetary financing in the treaties that puts up high legal hurdles", and purchasing of sovereign debts could hit those obstacles.
Minutes of BoJ October 31 meeting revealed some some board members believed "the effects that could be brought by additional monetary easing wouldn't be worth the accompanying costs and side effects." And some worried that expansion could QE could risk raising the perception that BoJ is financing the government deficit. During that meeting, BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda won support for additional easing by tight 5-4 vote. The central bank announced to raise annual target for monetary base expansion to JPY 80T.
On the data front, German and US Q3 GDP revision are the main focus today. UK will release BBA mortgage approvals. Canada will release retail sales. US will also release house price indices and consumer confidence.