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Watch our market get whacked today by yet another nasty fall in the iron ore price after weak Chinese housing data for October showed house prices falling faster than before.

As expected, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will delay the second part of the controversial sales tax increase and ask voters for a fresh mandate on December 14.

Now this is what the G20 leaders and their grandiose plans for global growth didn’t count on when they issued their statement on Sunday afternoon – a surprise lurch into recession by the world’s third biggest economy after a shock downturn in the three months to September.

Compared with the past couple of weeks, the coming week will be much quieter so far as important data and company announcements are concerned, while the results of the G20 meeting in Brisbane won’t have impact on markets or investor sentiment which is being driven more by falling commodity prices such as oil, and here in Australia iron ore, which hit a new five year low last week of $US75.40 a tonne.

World oil prices will again come under more pressure this week, despite gains on Friday night, our time.

Global sharemarkets were mixed over last week while commodities, led by gold, oil and iron ore fell and currencies and bonds were steady to slightly stronger.

Today marks the start of possibly the biggest day in China’s financial relations with the rest of the world in years with the start of direct trading links with the Shanghai stock exchange from the outside world.

Another bad night of trading for oil prices, with US oil sliding under $US75 a barrel for the first time in four years and the key Brent price in London dropping even further under the $US80 a barrel mark.

Less than a week after delivering a lower quarterly profit because of a write-down of its stake in the UK retailer, Tesco, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has surprised with the $US4.7 billion buy of Duracell batteries from consumer products giant, Procter and Gamble.

China’s economy has continued to slow at the start of the fourth quarter of the year with October reporting sluggish figures for industrial production, retail sales and urban investment.

The weakness in global oil prices took Brent crude, the so-called global marker crude type, to under $US80 a barrel for the first time in more than four years this morning.