US markets end flat amid consolidation

Sideways movement continued in US equity markets on low volumes on Wednesday.

US data was largely supportive while Europe newsflow was thin yesterday.

US industrial production for July rose 0.6% MoM as against consensus of 0.5%, led by motor vehicles (which jumped 3.3% MoM).

However, June figure for industrial production revised lower to 0.1% as against 0.4% (provisional)

US CPI for July was flat MoM and Core CPI went up 0.1% as against expectation of 0.2% for both readings.

NAHB Housing Market Index stood at 37, which was better than expectations and best since February 2007.

Empire State Manufacturing survey was weak at minus 5.85 as against 7.4 last month and expectations of 7.

US markets at close yesterday: Dow Jones fell 0.06% to 13,164.8 while S&P 500 Index gained 0.1% at 1,405.5 and Nasdaq Composite was up 0.5%

European markets at close: DAX declined 0.4% and CAC fell 0.03% while FTSE was down 0.5%. Spain gained 0.1% and Italy went up 0.8%.

Asia Today

Nikkei rallied 1.3%.

Straits Times was up 0.3%

Hang Seng and Shanghai were up 0.1% 

Taiwan Weighted was flat

Currencies

US Dollar rebounded post economic data.

Dollar Index hit a high of 82.7 yesterday as against lows of 82.1 (on Tuesday)  

Yen was above 79 to the dollar today morning.

Euro was off day's high, which slipped below 1.23 to the US dollar on Wednesday as against Tuesday's high of 1.238.

Commodities

Crude continued to rally, which was at 3-month high

Brent crude settled with 2% gains at USD 116.3 a barrel yesterday. It rose 0.3% today morning.

WTI crude closed at USD 94.5 a barrel after seeing nearly USD 95 a barrel yesterday.

EIA said inventories went down by 3.7 million barrels as against consensus of 1.5 million barrels.

Expectation of North Sea output fall continued to support crude oil prices.

LME Copper was down 0.4% yesterday. US copper futures gained 0.3% today morning.

Gold was rangebound at USD 1608 an ounce.

What to watch out for

UK Retail Sales

Eurozone CPI

US Housing Starts, Building Permits

US Initial Jobless Claims

Philadelphia Fed Survey

Minneapolis Fed President Speech