Well yesterday was a pretty dull day on the main equity markets! The FTSE finished up 5, the DAX was unchanged, it was only the Dow that managed any kind of movement finishing up 50 points. This was mainly driven on the hope of continued M&A activity that seems to have kicked off now all the CEO’s are back from their summer holidays and looking for a new challenge or to boast their egos. HP has finally won the bidding war for 3Par paying $33 a share ($2.35 Billion) after Dell pulled out of the bidding for the loss making data storage company. This was over 3 times the amount the shares were trading at before the bidding war started back in mid August and looks a touch pricy to say the least. The consolidation in the mining sector also continues at a rapid pace after the BHP/Potash takeover approach last week, Goldcorp is buying Andean Resources for $3.4 billion. With Gold prices still hovering around all time highs and new discoveries declining this trend looks to continue in this sector. Finally, 3G Capital are buying Burger King for $3.3 Billion which given the standard diet of our American friends does not look the worst deal done this year by a long shot!

The main currency markets also had a very sedate day with the only cable moving any significant amount, dropping 50 points back down to 1.5400. There was however some interesting news out of Japan overnight with reports that 3 government officials said that further efforts to support the currency would be difficult without support from the US, and that it was more likely to step in if volatility increased rather than further appreciation from its 15 year highs. That said the Yen is unchanged this morning against the dollar.

Gold recouped the losses it saw in the previous session and is now trading back above the $1250 level and WTI also nudged up a dollar and is back up to $74.65.

Traditionally the morning before Non Farm Payrolls is very quiet as everyone waits to see how the American job market is faring at 1330 and with the consensus looking for a fall of 105K in the number of Americans with jobs, any significant divergence away from this will only add to the already guaranteed volatility this afternoon.