US, European markets close flat; await Greek debt deal

Excerpts from Power Breakfast on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

By Gautam Broker, Research Analyst at CNBC-TV18

** Still no deal; Yet another 'Expect a deal today'

Greece polity is still in discussion mode; there was no decision on final terms yet. Reports suggest 13 billion euro spending cut.  

All eyes are on emergency meeting of euro area finance ministers on Greece, which has been called despite no final word from Greek government

Meeting will happen at 6 pm Brussels time and 10.30 pm at IST - Topics like rescue package and private sector bond swaps are on the agenda  

S&P says, Greece will fail to achieve sustainable debt levels even on 70% private sector haircuts; it needs ECB aid

** Markets in wait and watch mode; thinly traded session in the US

US markets closed flat on Wednesday: Dow Jones was up 6 points at 12,884; S&P 500 index rose 0.2% at 1,350; Nasdaq Composite was up 0.4% at 2,916

European markets too ended flat: CAC and DAX were down 0.1%; FTSE fell 0.2%

Bank of England will decide on further quantitative easing (QE) today
             
Asia today

Kospi and Hang Seng fell over 1%

Nikkei was down 0.8% and Straits Times down 0.6%

Taiwan declined 0.3% and Shanghai was down 0.1%

SGX Nifty slipped 31 points at 5,363

Currencies

Euro saw an intraday high of 1.3290 to the dollar on Wednesday

Euro was at 1.324 to the dollar today

Dollar Index was at 78.7 yesterday

Commodities

Brent crude saw gains for seventh consecutive session yesterday; it settled above USD 117/barrel - best since July 2011

WTI crude ended in the green at USD 98.2 a barrel despite a bearish inventory report 

Gold saw profit booking yesterday after Tuesday rally; it was down 0.7%

Copper was up almost 1% on PBoC move to aid property markets

US cues

Jobless Claims

Consensus expects 370k