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On May 6 2010, we experienced extremely volatile market conditions across all financial markets.

We would like to give you a summary of what occurred to explain the reasons behind today’s market volatility.

First, institutions were very cautious due to tomorrow’s UK Elections, US Nonfarm Payrolls, and the Canadian unemployment rate announcement.

In addition to that we had several market moving events. These include:

7:45 ET – European Central Bank Interest Rate Decision

8:30 ET – Trichet speaks at ECB Monthly News Conference

14:46 – Dow dropped almost 1,000 points and the bulk of the drop happened in less than an hour. The reason behind this drop ...

Biggest % gainers: USD/JPY up 0.77%, USD/CHF, AUD/JPY, AUD/CHF, AUD/NZD on mild Aussie strength as they blew out their retail sales numbers to the upside last night. Now more traders are thinking rate hikes might be back on the table.

New Japanese Finance Minister says he'd like to see the yen weaken to 95 (on USD/JPY). Kan Rewinds Stance on Yen Policy to Avoid ?Fatal Blow? to Japan - Bloomberg.com

Biggest % losers: NZD/USD down 0.50%, GBP/USD, EUR/USD on mild USD strength. No very strong movers either way this morning but that's typical as we approach the Non-Farm Payroll numbers on Friday.

Central Bankers meet this weekend in Switzerland with Private Banks to discuss regulation: Central Bankers to Gather With Private Banks at BIS (Update4) - Bloomberg.com ...

Global Market Wrap:

U.S. Markets Hold Higher

Equity Futures: Dow +17.00. S&P +5.70. NASDAQ +14.50. Japan Nikkei -60.00. German Dax +5.00

U.S. Trade: The cash equity market came almost to a standstill throughout the U.S. trading hours, with the Dow Jones index having a range of only 30 points, or 0.30%. Trading was more active in the S&P 500 and in the NASDAQ, but overall, the volumes recorded are far below the averages of the last few weeks. That did not stop the indexes holding close to yearly highs, and setting up a bullish near-term trend.

The cash market has failed to move decisively despite some important events that happened in Monday trade. First to hit the newswires ...

Biggest % gainers: EUR/CAD up 0.65%, USD/CAD, EUR/GBP, EUR/USD on mild EUR strength and mild CAD weakness.

Biggest % losers: GBP/JPY down 0.65%, AUD/JPY, USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, CHF/JPY on mild JPY weakness.

Gold $1,123 up 9.73 bouncing/recovering this morning.

Oil $ 69.53 still holding below the $70 mark.

Commodities are firming up a bit today causing the dollar to have some mild weakness and EUR strength (as the anti-dollar play).

News a bit more upbeat before the stock market opens: Citigroup to repay the $20 billion government bailout money...Exxon to buy XTO energy....Dubai gets a $10 billion life line from Abu Dhabi.

AUD Monetary Policy Minutes coming ...