Currency: Euro strengthened on ECB comments

The European Central Bank on Thursday kept the benchmark interest rate on the main refinancing operations at 0.75 percent. This was not a surprise from the ECB as the only few individual analysts and economists had expected a reduction in European interest rates.

Bonds: Interest rates fall in the north and increases in south

Wednesday was a very quiet day in the bond markets in Europe, where the result of investors' side stepping was a small decline in interest rates in northern Europe and similar small increases in Southern Europe.

It was still the macroeconomic events that had control of the financial markets with Spain, China and the U.S. in the lead roles.

U.S.: ISM services index surprisingly rose in September

The U.S. ISM index of activity in the service sector, ISM non-manufacturing, rose to index 55.1 in September from 53.7 the previous month.

Currency: Small adjustments but fall in Australian dollar

Tuesday and it’s again slow with movements in international currency markets. Investors follow the familiar pattern of strengthening of the euro as the risk desire increased, while the dollar and the yen weakened. There are, however, relatively small shifts, although there is no doubt about the trend.

Europe: Steady increases kicks off the last quarter

The European stock markets opened the fourth quarter with decent gains after the release of the results of the Spanish bank test, which showed a capital needs in the context of what was devoted to the Spanish banking sector in the EU rescue fund EFSF. Moreover, U.S. data helped lift the mood as the ISM index for U.S. manufacturing showed a somewhat larger increase than expected.