By Wayne Cole SYDNEY (Reuters) - Most Asian share markets marched higher on Monday, energised by a potent cocktail of upbeat Chinese trade data, a weaker yen and a firm finish on Wall Street. Prices for iron ore have been surprisingly firm around $139 a tonne recently, good news for Australia as it is the country's single biggest export earner.

By Wayne Cole SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian markets were poised to move higher on Monday, energized by a potent cocktail of upbeat Chinese trade data, a weaker yen and a firm finish on Wall Street. Both the dollar and the euro extended their gains on the yen, with the single currency hitting a five-year high in what should be a boost to Japanese exports, profits and stocks.

By Douwe Miedema and Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When U.S. regulators adopt the Volcker rule on Tuesday, they will make good on a promise by politicians to rein in banks' ability to gamble with their own money. The coordinated action by five separate regulatory agencies is seen sparking a court challenge as Wall Street tries once again to avoid one of the harshest elements of the post-financial crisis crackdown. The rule, championed by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, was a last-minute addition to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and takes aim at a business that had been a big money spinner for banks before the crisis. "For something of this magnitude and this controversial ... there will be somebody who will challenge it," said Brian Cartwright, an advisor at consultancy Patomak Global Partners and a former general counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of the agencies voting on the measure.

(Reuters) - Commodity Futures Trading Commission chief Gary Gensler has convinced regulators to insert new language into the Volcker rule restricting foreign banks from evading the rule, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The new language, which clarifies the Volcker rule's definition of trading solely outside the United States, ensures that banking giants such as Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Plc are not an exception to the regulation's ban on proprietary trading, according to the report, which cited sources briefed on the change. Gensler and the CFTC were not immediately available to comment to Reuters. The CFTC was earlier sued by three Wall Street trade groups to fight the tough overseas trading guidelines and accused it of making changes to the guidelines without seeking public input.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan is looking into why JPMorgan Chase & Co did not file a suspicious activity report about Bernard Madoff before he was arrested for running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people close to the probe. The bank is negotiating a settlement with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office over the matter that will likely include a fine and a deferred prosecution agreement, the Journal reported. JPMorgan had raised concerns with UK regulators about Madoff more than a month before his arrest in December 2008, the Journal reported.

The Federal Reserve will start reducing its massive bond-buying program no later than March, according to a Reuters poll on Friday, with a handful of Wall Street firms expecting the U.S. central bank taking action as early as December following a second straight month of robust jobs gains. The poll canvassing 18 of the 21 primary dealers - those banks who are permitted to deal securities directly with the Fed - found that eight of them expect the first so-called tapering of bond purchases to begin in March. Friday's poll results, which followed a stronger-than-expected reading of the U.S. job market in November, with the unemployment rate falling to a five-year low, slightly moved forward the anticipated time frame for the first tapering by the Fed. In the November poll, two of the 16 dealers surveyed did not see the wind down beginning until April 2014.

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. companies are sounding the alarm on fourth-quarter earnings, lowering profit estimates just as the stock market is poised to end its best year since 1998. The ratio of profit warnings to positive outlooks for the current quarter is shaping up to be the worst since at least 1996, based on Thomson Reuters data. "There's a natural tendency on the part of Wall Street in any given year to be overly optimistic as it relates to the back half of the year ... It isn't so much the companies' failing, it's where Wall Street has decided to place the bar," said Matthew Kaufler, portfolio manager for Clover Value Fund at Federated Investors in Rochester, New York.

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. companies are sounding the alarm on fourth-quarter earnings, lowering profit estimates just as the stock market is poised to end its best year since 1998. The ratio of profit warnings to positive outlooks for the current quarter is shaping up to be the worst since at least 1996, based on Thomson Reuters data.