First on major market movers -- European, Australian interest rate decisions

Reuters reinforced its reputation as the news source markets can rely on for the biggest decisions in monetary policy. From Australia, we were a full three seconds ahead on the Reserve Bank slashing its benchmark rate by 75 basis points on Nov. 4, and swiftly followed with insight and market reaction. On a day of surprises in Europe growing likelihood of both the BOE and SNB actions in market reports that morning and in the days before, putting clients on alert fan policy moves on Nov. 6, it was the decision by the Swiss National Bank to chop 50 basis points from interest rates that caught markets most unaware — completely unscheduled and done in the shadow of a massive move by the Bank of England. Yet Reuters had clearly flagged the action. The Reuters team in Zurich was a full 30 seconds faster than Bloomberg in breaking news of the SNB’s cut and was a whopping three minutes ahead of Dow Jones. It was a headline that prompted interest rate futures to jump, the Swiss franc to dip against the euro and Swiss stocks pare losses. Just 45 minutes later, Reuters was first to report that the European Central Bank had cut its own interest rates by the 50 basis points economists had expected, beating Bloomberg by one second while Dow Jones clients had to wait a huge two and a half minutes. The scale of the BOE impact was huge given that futures traders had spent the 45 minutes dealing time in between BoE and ECB decisions pushing EONIA prices to discount a full 100 basis points of cuts. Reuters followed up this coup with wins on the key alerts from ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet’s news conference that another cut was likely. Reuters also rounded out the file with rich analysis, and exclusive content from same-day polls of over 50 market leaders on what next for BOE and ECB rates.