Overnight

A line from an old Jim Croce song: It's was bound to happen, just a matter of time and now looks like the time at least in the eyes of many market watchers, a rate hike by  the Fed and the ECB easing its quantitative easing.In short, the ECB is draining some of the punch out of the old whatever-it-takes punch bowl.

And that affected Asian shares ear;y Wednesday as four of the makrets traded lower, the ASX 200 off 0.5%; Korea's Kospi dropped 0.1%;Singapore's FTSE Straits Times Index lost 0.2% and the Taiwan was down 0.15. But it wasn't all negative as the Hang Seng cut early losses to trade higher up 0.5%. Chinese mainland markets are closed for the week.

After years of looking for the inflation needle everywhere but hay stacks, Fed officials apparently think they've found some on the distant data horizon and want to step on the interest rate accelerator to head off inflation at the corner of Wall and Broad. Here's a typical quote from Chair Yellen's messengers, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffery Lacker: “While inflation pressures may seem a distant and theoretical concern right now, prudent pre-emptive action can help us avoid the hard-to-predict emergence of a situation that requires more drastic action after the fact.” Some observers might choke on that term pre-emptive, but oh well.

Meanwhile, all the rate hike talk coupled with Magic Mario's insinuating bond buying will get wound down gradually, gold and silver took it in the shorts as the yellow stuff fell below the $1,300,trading at $1,272 and ounce. The lower price, if they last, should add to buying later this month at the Indian festival. At one point gold was off nearly 2%.



Neils Christensen of Kitco news noted: "The silver market has seen as even sharper drop with prices at its lows down well more than 3% on the day. December Comex silver futures last traded at $18.255 an ounce."

The one market that failed to take the head fake, if that's what it is, was the Nikkei 225, up 0.6%, led by the big auto makers and aided by the weaker yen.That's your signal to know that the dollar was up. Coming up to keep investors busy are the ISM non-manufacturing data and U.S. job numbers Friday.
Overnight, U.S. crude oil futures climbed 0.92 percent to $49.14 a barrel, while Brent futures were up 0.85 percent at $51.30.