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Abu Dhabi has stepped in to bail out fellow United Arab Emirates member (profligate) Dubai with a $US10 billion ($10.9 billion) injection, of which 40% will be used by troubled state-owned conglomerate Dubai World to pay a loan falling due yesterday.

Confidence remains in short supply among Japan’s large and medium sized businesses, from manufacturing, to services and financials.  

Asia’s two-paced boom continues.

Strong industrial production numbers out of China and better-than-hoped for US retail and consumer confidence data helped global equities finish a choppy week on a positive note.

So what’s going on in the global oil market?

China’s steel production boom cooled a touch in November, while iron ore imports picked up and steel exports rose again.

A busy week in the US and here in Australia as the countdown to the end of the year approaches.

As we close in on the end of 2009, the year that was almost the year from hell, a third month of solid employment growth has added to the flow of strongly positive data about the economy.

With November economic figures out later today expected to show further sold growth in the economy, China has acted to curb speculation in real estate and cool the booming car sector.

New Zealand seems to be growing, so the country’s central bank has decided it wants to board the interest rate rise express, but not quite yet.

On Tuesday we noted the earnings downgrade from Skilled Group (SKE) and warned to be on the look out for more warnings to surprise on the downside than the state of the market would have us believe.

The AMP’s Chief Economist, Dr Shane Oliver says this year has been a year of recovery, first in share markets and then in global economic activity, while 2010 is likely to see the economic recovery continue and become self sustaining. This will underpin gains in most growth oriented investments.

We learned yesterday just why the Japanese government is trying to get a stimulus package up for the third or fourth time, and why one its key allies is arguing to make it as big as possible.

The real story from the housing finance stats yesterday was that the new home building boom is alive and growing and will continue going well into 2010.

Australian consumers would seem to be a bit less confident than business, but that is all to do with the timing of the two main surveys.

Yesterday we reported on how the worsening in our balance of payments for the September quarter was going to hurt third quarter growth figures.

Reserve Bank Governor, Glenn Stevens has warned that keeping interest rates too low doesn’t help regulate banking activity.

Japan’s cabinet has approved a huge economic stimulus package worth $US81 billion (or 7.2 trillion yen) of direct spending, and a further $US150 billion of non-cash aid.

The $US15 billion ($A16.46 billion) liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Papua New Guinea has been given the go-ahead, subject to finalising sales agreements and finance, both of which won’t be a concern. 

Foreign trade will make its biggest negative quarterly contribution to economic growth in 35 years in the September quarter, thanks to the impact of lower contract and market prices for coal and iron ore, plus energy.

The Australian economy’s rebound is still happening, according to job ads figures from the ANZ’s November report yesterday.

US oil major Chevron has signed a $A90 billion contract, Australia’s biggest ever deal of any kind, to sell liquefied natural gas to Tokyo Electric Power from its proposed Wheatstone LNG project offshore northwestern Western Australia.

The US dollar rebounded strongly on Friday, giving it the strongest week since January in the wake of the much better than forecast US jobs figures.

After last week’s interest rate rise from the Reserve Bank, this week we see the economic stories for the month of October and the September quarter further fleshed out with the release of a series of reports.

Our market should start higher today, but watch for the sell off in gold shares to emerge after the sharp 4% plunge Friday in the world price in New York.

More increases in Australian interest rates are likely in the year ahead as the RBA seeks to move rates towards normal levels. The normal level is now judged to be around 5%.

A solid month in November for many of the world’s major car markets, including Australia, but those economies where some sort of tax or purchase assistance is in place did a lot better than those without.