Action Economics morning alert

(Action Economics) - 06:17 EST Oil Action: Oil prices have climbed towards $78 bbl in European trade, after declining yesterday, with the EIA reporting that U.S. gasoline stockpiles rose by 1.62 mln barrels in the week to October 23. Focus today will be on U.S. GDP figures. As of 10:06GMT the December Nymex future was up 25 cents at USD 77.71 per barrel, after trading in a range of USD 77.03 to USD 77.85.

06:16 EST Gold Action: Gold continued to trade above $1030.00 during the European morning after it rebounded from Wednesday's three week low of $1025.75. An intra-day high of $1034.75 was noted amid bargain hunting from Asian fund names overnight and light speculative demand picked up in Europe in line with EUR-USD's move above 1.4750. Wednesday's break down in spot gold was exacerbated by the break below the $1030 support level, which was expected to fuel more investor unwinding and may have led to the 0.1% fall in the SPDR Trust to 1,104.434, which is now the third consecutive session of softer levels. However, some players still see value at current, with the big-picture story still one of improving economic fundamentals and the vast majority of companies posting better than expected earnings.

06:10 EST The eurozone October ESI sentiment indicator rose to 86.2 from 82.8 in September. This was much stronger than our median of 84.5. The breakdosn showed improvements across all sectors with the exception of the retail sector, where confidence stagnated over the month. The marked improvement is encouraging and ties in with other confidence indicators, which confirms that growth is improving. However, readings for all sectors remain in negative territory, which suggests that pessimists still outnumber optimists, which means there are still lingering downside risks. Quarterly data showed capacity utilisation in the eurozone rising to 70.7% from 69.6% in Q3. However, this is still sharply below the 82.4% in Q4 last year, which highlights the extent of the slowdown in economic activity.

06:01 EST EU's Almuni said volatile exchange rate movements are damaging, adding that major economies should coordinate to limit FX volatility.

05:37 EST U.K. September M4 holdings, excluding Other Financial Corporations, fell 0.9% month opver month and was up just 0.1% year over year. The measure is one of several the BoE use as an indicator of the impact of its asset purchase operations. Non-financial corporations' money holdings rose 0.5% month opver month in September after declining 0.1% in August. Meanwhile, the year over year rate was 1.4% in September, versus 0.8% in August. Lending to the same sector fell 0.1% month opver month and was down 3.4% year over year, versus -3.2% year over year in August. M4 data hence offer no conclusive evidence that the central bank's quantitative easing efforts have had much impact yet. Total M4 money supply growth was 0.6% month opver month and 6.5% year over year (the latter was the lowest since February 1995).

05:33 EST U.K. September net mortgage lending rose GBP0.92 bln, after rising 1.2 bln in August (revised from 1.0 bln) and above the Reuters median forecast for a 0.8 bln increase. Meanwhile, new mortgage approvals were 56.2k, well above our survey median for 53.8 and compared to 53.0k in August (revised up from 52.0k). Data hence adds further evidence that the U.K. housing market is now stabilising. Meanwhile, net consumer credit declined by GBP0.26 bln, after falling 0.37 bln in August (revised from -0.31 bln), as households repay debt but also on the back of tight credit conditions.