The G7 leaders could only offer speech by President Bush and a five point plan. The weekend papers went with doom-and-gloom analyses of who would bit hit the most.
The heads of the Euro zone did something very unlikely. They invited Gordon Brown to their discussion; the discussion fell in with market expectations that the rescue proposal that his team had set out for Britain would be used here. With the proposal having already had a review from the media when it was put forward in London, it got good feedback. This was also the reaction to EU's similar proposal.
Will any of this solve the problems we face? The answer, in the short term, is probably no but at least the stage is set for a recovery of the interbank and inter-institutional confidence that is necessary to unblock the money markets' plumbing.
The New York Times headline tell us they have the plans and the will to put them into effect; now lets see what happens. Modest optimism in Asian equity markets this morning will carry through to Europe. For currencies this ought to mean a more relaxed attitude to risk – so look for the Aussie and New Zealand Dollars to perk up and for the Yen and US Dollar to slip back.
The picture for Sterling/Euro is slightly more difficult to review. The EU's Euro zone members have – except for specific national differences of detail – adopted the British plan to normalise money markets.
We have UK PPI out today but this should have little effect on markets. The US is closed today due to Columbus Day and no EU data.