Yesterday the Dow rallied to a high of nearly 11% on news of upcoming rate cut on JPY in the later half of the trading day in NY. If this materialized, the actual cut should be announced sometimes on Friday in the BOJ meeting. Yesterday also the FOMC started its 2-day deliberation on monetary policy decision, and is widely expected to cut interest rates by 0.5-1.0 percentage points later tonight at 2.15 am. There was active trading in JPY and JPY-related crosses as investors started to offload JPY holdings. Earlier at 10.00 pm SGT, US consumer confidence for the month of October plunged to 38.0, the lowest record since the index began.