Quick Overview

• Stocks are helped today by a successful Portuguese debt offering easing risk aversion.

• Canada nudged its overnight rate target up 0.25% to 1%

• The Czech unemployment rate fell to 8.6% in August from 8.7% in July

• YoY Czech Q2 GDP rose2.4%

• YoY Hungary’s Industrial Output rose 9.0% in July

• Hungary will launch a flat 16% personal income tax next year

• Japan Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda was the latest official to warn markets that Japan was ready to act, specifically raising the specter of intervention for the first time."We will take decisive steps--which of course include intervention--when it becomes necessary," Noda said.

• Japanese machinery orders rose 8.8% from June, when they increased 1.6%

• German July current account surplus out at EUR9.0B vs EUR10.6B in July 09

• German July trade surplus out at EUR13.5 B vs EUR14.3 B in July 09

• UK manufacturing output rose for a third straight month in July, growing 0.3% from June--the same monthly rate as in the two previous months. In annual terms output rose 4.9%