- With the US and Japanese markets closed for holidays, Asian stocks found it difficult to get momentum on Thursday. For a second day, oil dropped.
- Australia's equity market declined, Hong Kong and China's saw some volatility, while South Korea's equities gave up previous gains. After dropping about 1% the day before due to reports that the OPEC+ group of oil producing nations would postpone a meeting, the possibility of an impending production reduction to support prices diminished, and oil continued to lose value in Asia.
- Following the announcement that Beijing had included Country Garden and other troubled developers to a preliminary list of builders eligible for financial assistance—the latest attempt to address an estimated $446 billion gap required to ease the housing crisis—the company's stock price in Hong Kong jumped. Setting a new record for its strongest week since early September, a measure of Chinese real estate equities surged 7%.
- Prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, the S&P 500 increased by 0.4% on Wednesday. This continued the November surge that has increased the index by around 8%, putting it on course to have its best month since July of last year. Little changed in Asian trading for US futures.
