Shiller on New York: We're Ancient Rome, Right Before the Fal

News during the Asian trading session that the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority would invest $7.5B in Citibank led the Nikkei to rebound, and pushed FX carry trades like USDJPY and GBPJPY to rocket higher as well. While the positive sentiment waned over the following few hours, the greenback remains stronger than yesterday, with pairs like EURUSD and GBPUSD down slightly from Monday’s highs near 1.49 and 2.07, respectively. Nevertheless, as London traders started to come into play, better-than-expected German sentiment data along with disappointing forecasts for today’s US economic data reignited the Euro. Indeed, the German IFO business climate survey surprisingly rose in November to 104.2 from 103.9, putting an end to six consecutive months of declines. Current assessments remained buoyant as well, suggesting that investors are still relatively optimistic despite instability in the financial markets and the tightening of credit conditions. read more