November 20th, 2013, Daily Market Bite from Ishaq Siddiqi Market Strategist.

Soft start to the European trading session as the market awaits high profile US economic data and the Fed’s meeting minutes from the October policy meeting for more clues over the health of the world’s largest economy.

Overnight, we had a mixed session in Asian markets with Chinese indices still supported by the country’s reform plans announced in the past few days. Japan’s share market dropped however as trade data suggested the weaker yen over the past year was the reason for the widening in the trade deficit.

In the US on Tuesday, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke emphasised that any tapering of QE will be data-dependent but did not drop any hints on when the Bank will initiate tapering. The market viewed his reluctance to change his rhetoric as a sign that we could still be facing the prospects of tapering as early as next month.

Here in Europe, benchmark indices are falling from 5 year highs on general trepidation at the prospects of tapering by the Fed, impeding the chances of a Santa-rally to end the year.

Later this afternoon, other than the Fed meeting minutes, we have US retail sales [ahead of Black Friday this week], inflation data from the US, existing home sales and business inventories. Before that, we have the BOE’s meeting minutes to look over.

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