Manufacturing data from China released over the weekend lifted market sentiments as the week starts and sent Asian equities generally higher as well as European and North American markets. The official manufacturing PMI improved to a seven-month high of 50.6 in November. While the figure was slightly below expectation of 50.8, it does suggest that recovery is gathering pace mildly.

The RBA – Royal Bank of Australia is expected to cut interest rates 25 bps to 3% in December. The key reason for the rate cut was to stimulate non-mining domestic economic growth in light of potential slowdown of mining investment.

In Europe, it’s reported that Greece will unveil the details of the bond buy-back package today, ahead of another EU finance minister meeting. Under the plan, Greece will target to lower its overall debt by a net EUR 20b, through spending EUR 10b from EFSF to buy back bonds with EUR 30b face value from the markets. It’s like borrowing with credit cards to pay credit cards. In Germany, Chancellor Merkel was asked if haircut of Greek debt is a way out of the situation of unsustainable debt, austerity and recession. She responded by saying that “when Greece one day manages with its revenue, without taking on new debt, then we have to look anew at the situation and re-evaluate.” The comments were taken as a sign that Merkel is finally softening her stance on debt forgiveness thus there would be an eventual debt write-down.