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A poppy sits in the hand of a statue of a fallen soldier during the annual Armistice Day Service at the Armed Forces Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum on November 11, 2015 in Alrewas, United Kingdom.
Gold dropped to a five-year low and US stocks closed in the red on Wednesday amid lower-than-usual trading volumes. Gold got crushed on Friday after the stellar US jobs report raised the market's confidence that the Fed could up interest rates next month.
Asian stock markets are mixed. Japan's Nikkei is up 0.03% at time of writing (6.30 a.m. GMT/1.30 a.m. ET), Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 1.32%, but the Shanghai Composite is down 0.36%.
It's a day of central bankers' speeches. ECB head Mario Draghi kicks things off with a speech to the European Parliament at 10.30 a.m. GMT (5.30 a.m. ET). Then a host of US Federal Reserve figures will speak this afternoon, including chair Janet Yellen.
The Governor of the People's Bank of China has warned that China faces "financial risks" as renminbi becomes an international currency. Zhou Xiaochuan did not detail the risks faced, but said structural conflicts and institutional problems have surfaced and the fate of financial reforms would depend on the nation's financial security.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi begins a visit to Britain today that he hopes will yield trade deals worth billions of dollars and boost his authority after a damaging electoral failure back home. Diplomats say deals worth £8 billion-£12 billion ($12 billion-$18 billion) could be signed during his visit to London, with the Indian leader keen to buy 20 more BAE Systems Hawk trainer aircraft to be made in Bengaluru.
Morgan Stanley plans to offer savings accounts and certificates of deposits next year to wring more profit from its wealth management clients. The bank has offered checking accounts and credit cards for years, but Reuters reports it is launching more consumer banking products and giving brokers bonuses if clients use them.
Bankers who received taxpayer money during the financial crisis are not unlike shoplifters, Chancellor George Osborne has said. The Telegraph reports that the Chancellor said during an event at the Bank of England that at the time of the financial crisis, and in the years that followed, there were no laws in place to allow regulators and lawmakers to punish offenders in the financial services sector or bring criminal charges against them.
Apple is in talks with banks in the US about creating its own mobile-to-mobile payments service that sounds a lot like PayPal's Venmo app, according to the Wall Street Journal. The app would reportedly let people send payments to each other directly from their phones, and automatically take them out of their checking accounts on the back end.
Australia's jobs report for October smashed expectations. Over the month employment jumped by 58,600, well above the median market forecast for an increase of 15,000. The monthly increase was the largest since March 2012.
Apple has announced 1,000 new jobs at its operation in Ireland. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said he was feeling "pretty good" ahead of the European Union's judgment on its Irish tax arrangements.