Markets confused over direction of US Federal Reserve

Global markets are unsure over the direction assumed by the US Federal Reserve as clashes over the direction of monetary policy in Europe have also been witnessed, a local financial report suggested on Sunday.
The 12-week one-way move of the US Dollar (USD) ended this week, driven by a variety of factors the most important of which was profit taking which started on Monday and continued on Wednesday after the dovish Fed minutes, raising the question as to whether the Fed might remove considerable period at the October meeting, according to the National Bank of Kuwait.
In the commodities markets, the USD strength managed to send oil prices down to their lowest in two years, while Gold recovered from its losses after the release of the Federal Open Market Committee minutes for 17 September meeting.
As for Europe, the report said that the stream of disappointing data continues out of Germany with investors questioning the solidity of its economy and whether it could continue to support the rest of the Eurozone.
Looking at this data, Germany's trade numbers confirmed this week that exports have slumped 5.8 percent, which is once again the biggest fall since the financial global crisis in 2009.
This the fall in exports as well as imports has been blamed by the Federal Stats office on summer vacations in some German states.
But the figures still paint a gloomy picture for Germany following steep drops in industrial orders and output data earlier in the week.
On Asia, it said that the Bank of Japan refrained from further monetary expansion last week, fueling speculation that the bank will boost stimulus to meet the inflation target goal.