The market having a great day - up 148 – on the back of Wall Street's big session overnight. The SFE Futures sugggested a 176 point rise in the market this morning.

Wall Street up 391 overnight and closed right on its high. Capital raisings by Lehman Bros ($4bn – initial $3bn capital raising was oversubscribed) and UBS ($15.1bn) suggest that someone at least has enough confidence in the financial sector to commit capital. It is a show of confidence that the worst may be over, financials are at a bottom and that the credit markets may be easing up. It was the best start to a Q in 70 years. The first day of a quarter is often an up day as new cash is invested. The rally is being seen as a sign that there is a lot of cash on the sidelines and one market report described it as the "elimination of survival risk".

In other words a sign that financial institutions will not be going out of business but will be supported. The big rally in financials came at the expense of commodities, a US dollar rally kept commodity prices under wraps. Compared with the S&P 500 down 3.9% in the last year the Financial sector is down 25.6% and consumer discretionary sector down 15.5%. Both sectors had big rallies last night. VIX Volatility Index down 11% to 22.68….down 30% from it mid March high. Dow Futures at 11am are suggesting a 4 point fall tonight. Both BHP and RIO up in ADR form overnight, 1.61% and 1.92% respectively.

Metals mostly down overnight – Nickel down 1.4%, Aluminium down 1% and Copper 0.5%. Zinc was unchanged. Oil price down 62c to $100.92 after the US dollar strengthened against the Euro and other currencies.

Gold down $33.30 to $882.90. Newcrest down 4.8%, Lihir 3.7%, Sino Gold down 5.71%. Bonds down with the 10 year yield up to 3.55% from 3.43%.