Fed head Jerome Powell is due to speak again this evening, and this will be closely monitored by investors, who were disappointed by his silence on monetary policy in another speech yesterday.

Earnings releases keep coming at fast pace: overall, this earnings season is already considered a success. Well, especially in the United States, because some UK companies have had a bit of a difficult time.

Today's macro news is dominated by one past and one future event: Chinese inflation and US weekly employment figures respectively. In Beijing, the statistics have an unfortunate tendency to follow one another: they are pretty weak. In October, consumer prices fell when they were expected to rise slightly, while producer prices continued to contract. Deflation is therefore still in the air in China. U.S. labor market data will also be closely watch, as the first cracks have started to appear in the full employment state that has been the norm for several quarters.

The FTSE 100 was slightly red this morning, hampered by Flutter, which tumbled 10%, after the online betting company said it expects full-year profit to come at the bottom of its guidance range.

AstraZeneca jumped 2.6% after tit raised its annual core profit outlook.

Things to read today:

Politics poses the biggest threat to economic growth in China (Financial Times)

Free Markets Are the Worst, Except for the Alternatives (Bloomberg)