Equities staged an impressive recovery during US trading yesterday, shrugging off yet another round of weak figures, with confidence in the eventual recovery of the economy at some point during the middle of next year apparently holding firm. The volatile nature of the statistics at present, coupled with the possibility of the terrorist attacks reducing the reliability of the survey data, is certainly helping the equity market to look through the bad news at present. But this afternoon’s non-farm payrolls report will provide firm evidence of the impact upon the household sector from a heightened level of corporate stress and the subsequent risks of a deeper and more prolonged recession than is currently being discounted. A fresh package of reforms was unveiled in Argentina late last night, which entail a ‘voluntary’ restructuring of the country’s entire public debt aimed at saving some $4bn in interest payments next year although details are still scant and no significant narrowing of spreads is expected. The European markets, meanwhile, will return from the latest public holiday to yet more poor economic data this morning in the form of manufacturing PMI surveys that will place further pressure on the ECB to act next week.