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• Australian Stock Market Report – Midday 10/23/2012
• Japan's Trade Deficit Widened the Most on Record, BOJ Pledged to Keep Ultra Low Interest Rates
• Crude Oil: Pivot Point Signal 23.10.2012

Friday's sharp decline sent commodities broadly lower on weekly basis. Disappointing corporate earnings and the uneventful EU summit were key reasons damping market sentiment and reducing demand for commodity investments. All of General Electric, McDonald's and Microsoft Corp's earnings missed market expectations. In the Eurozone, S&P's credit ratings of 7 Spanish banks, including Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, following the downgrade of Spain's sovereign debt rating to BBB- last week. According to the rating agency, "the sovereign downgrade has direct negative rating implications on those banks that we rated higher than the BBB- long-term rating on Spain, and on all banks where we factored extraordinary government support into the ratings". Also, last week's downgrade of Spanish bonds to BBB- and "the factors behind it will likely affect our view of the Spanish banking sector's economic and/or industry risks". On a positive note, Moody's left Spain's credit rating at Baa3, one grade above junk bonds.

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