This weekend brought mixed news about the lessening of RISK in Japan, and possibly Bahrain, while increasing the sense of risk in Libya and other parts of the Middle East. It appears that the threat of nuclear catastrophe has been diminished as some power has been restored to the nuclear plants under stress and the needed cooling is proceeding. The Japanese equity market will be a good source to monitor investor sentiment as weekend news publications were filled with articles about the values abound in the Nikkei and other Japan-based indexes. The YEN will be a much more difficult barometer because of the impact of YEAR END and its ability to cause disruptive volatility in currency markets.