- Summary of trade between 17:00 ET and 23:00 ET: Despite the sell-off in the last hour of trade on Wall Street, carry trades carried on in Asia as concerns eased that losses related to subprime mortgages are spreading. Others disagree, suggesting there may be more bad news to come on the subprime front - the WSJ reports that UBS may face Q4 write-downs of as much as $7.11B, adding that Citigroup may face more pain. The gains on carry trades also weighed on the USD, with the USD index trending down for most of the Asian morning. Equity investors remain on the fence, wary of more negative news flow, as Asian stock markets traded mixed. Australia's ASX traded with a downward bias, while short-covering gave the Nikkei a decent lift. Crude oil prices barely changed. Investors dumped gold after the commodity failed to break a resistance level.

- Chinese data shows economy on the verge of overheating: (CH OCT INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION YOY: 17.9% V 18.5% expected, 18.9% prior) China's Jan-Oct industrial value-added output was +18.5% y/y. Even though today's data was softer than expected, economists say recent data shows that China is on the verge of overheating and interest rates need to rise very soon.

- New Zealand's September retail sales boosted by higher fuel prices: (NZ SEPT RETAIL SALES MOM: 1.0% V 0.5% expected, prior revised to 0.3% from 0.2%; EX-AUTO: 0.5% V 0.8% prior) Sales excluding inflation, a measure of volumes, rose by 0.2% (in line with analyst estimates). Analysts said that the data shows that New Zealanders are slowing down their spending (shown by the ex-inflation figure), adding weight to the consensus that the RBNZ will leave rates on hold.

- Equities: The Nikkei traded higher on short-covering for most of the morning, but dipped back to negative territory at the time of writing this. At 23:11 ET, the Nikkei is +0.02%, Australia's ASX is -0.57%, South Korea's KOSPI is -0.70% and the Shanghai Composite Index is -0.05%. Tokyo investors bought financials and commodity-related shares, while Australian investors sold those types of shares. The Kospi traded lower as traders bagged profits on SK Telecom. Barrons reported that a $5.0B General Electric bond fund has suffered serious losses, and GE is offering investors the option to redeem their holdings for 96 cents on the dollar. GE shares dropped more than 1.0% in afterhours trade on the news.

- Commodities: Crude oil prices barely moved in Asia, as traders sit on their hands ahead of tomorrow's weekly U.S. crude oil inventories data. Spot gold traded higher for most of the session, but sold off after failing to move above $819/oz. Shanghai copper is higher following an earthquake in Chile, which is the largest global copper producer.

(by Eben Esterhuizen and Gavin Pierce)