While everyone was enjoying their Thanksgiving Day, there was some big news impacting the financial world as the Dubai Govt has asked investors to extend the maturity of upcoming debt amortizations of two of its state-owned companies, Dubai World and its real estate development arm Nakheel,until 30 May 2010. Subsequently, the Dubai government has authorized Dubai Financial Support Fund to “restructure Dubai World with immediate effect”.  Technically, this does not constitute a sovereign default, since there are no sovereign guarantees on Dubai World and its subsidiaries; in fact, the government issued a decree earlier this year stating that it will not underwrite liabilities of Dubai World. But it was the government rather than the company that announced the stand still over the holioday, and investors can be forgiven for regarding the finances of the emirate and of its wholly-owned subsidiaries as not clearly distinguishable.  This did have an impact on the USD as investors rushed in to the oversold market and took risk off of commodities sending oil lower by -$5.00 at one point and Gold down -$50 respectively.  The market has quickly regained the momentum as the United Arab Emirates’ central bank said it would back the country’s lenders from a possible default by Dubai World, easing concerns of an economic slowdown.  This remains to be seen as either a temporary fix or if there are actual big-time problems with Dubai and it’s liquidity.  For now the markets like the news from the UAE and commodities are rebounding.