19 September 2011 at 8:04 GMT
Risk will look forward to Wednesday's FOMC announcement with expectations mounting that the Federal Reserve will initiate a so-called Operation Twist. Risk is off to a bad start, however, as EU policymakers failed to produce anything of note at the Friday meeting between EU finance ministers and central bankers in Poland.
The meeting in Wroclaw, Poland failed to produce any solutions at all to the problems facing the struggling monetary union. Indeed, the meeting which was attended by U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner turned into a debate over how the U.S. could possibly believe it was fit to give others advice on financial matters. Austrian Fekter stated:
"I had expected that when he tells us how he sees the world he would listen to what we have to say". Risk has responded in style with the S&P 500 futures down 1.5 percent as we write (more about the meeting can be found
here).
Today's calendar is as barren as they come with only Construction Ouput from the Eurozone at 09:00 GMT and the NAHB Housing Index from the US at 14:00. The latter has improved a July and August printing of 15 from a low of 13 in June. Nevertheless the index remains abysmal and does not suggest any sudden improvement in the U.S. housing market.