The market is down 9. The SFE Futures were down 17 this morning.

Dow Jones down 64 — Dow down 67 at worst and up 10 at best. A clutch of US economic numbers were generally in line or a bit above expectations although the focus is on the US FOMC Meeting tonight and any hints about the timing of the next bout of quantitative easing. It is still probably a bit early for the Fed to expand upon their line of being “ready to act if necessary”.

There is also an ECB and a Bank of England policy meeting tonight with some chance of an ECB rate cut with the meeting also providing a platform for an ECB statement designed to dispel concerns about the Spanish and Italian bond markets. Spanish bond yields crept up again by 13.6bp to 6.749%. Italian bond yields above 6% again at 6.083% up 5bp. A statement by the German Finance Ministry suggested there was no need for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to be given a banking license. A factor that had contributed to the recent European market rally. Moody’s Investors Service lowered its forecast for UK economic growth (in line with most economists’ forecasts).

European markets down — FTSE down 1.02%, German DAX down 0.03%, France down 0.87%, Spain down 0.94%, Italy down 0.62% and Greece down 0.13%. The Stoxx Europe 600 dropped by 1.0% in Tuesday trading, headed by falls in its Energy (-1.4%) and Financials (-1.3%0 sectors). Metals mostly down although Copper was up 0.23%. Nickel down 2.41%, Aluminium down 0.60% and Zinc down 1.12%. Oil down $2.34 to $87.44. Gold down $6 to $1613.

  • CHINESE PMI at 50.1 misses estimates of 50.5.  The June July and August PMI numbers generally see a seasonal dip. The economy is still expanding but this is the lowest this year and the third monthly fall on the trot. The weakish number makes stimulus from the PBOC more likely. The market went into a mild downtrend on the release.
  • Australia’s June manufacturing activity has fallen at its fastest rate in three years. The AIG/PWC Australian Performance and Manufacturing Index (PMI) was 6.9 points lower to 40.3. The worst performing sectors were paper printing, publishing, textiles and basic metals.
  • Country Road (CTY) have announced that they will buy Witchery Australia for $172m. A one for two pro rata renounceable rights issue at $2.66 by CTY will assist in the acquisition. The stock is in a trading halt.
  • News Corp (NWS) will axe almost a third of employees at The Daily — their online newspaper designed for the tablet. 50 jobs will be lost as it reflects the “changing business environment for the news and media”, said NWS. NWS is down 1.03% to 2208c
  • Wayne Swan has said that his initial public criticism of Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest did not go far enough. In March Swan accused the three of using financial muscle to unfairly influence the national political debate.
  • Molopo Energy (MPO) have sold their coal seam gas assets in QLD to PetroChina for $41m. MPO say that they will also receive $2.4m in working capital from the deal. MPO is up 5.95% to 44.5c.
  • Alkane Resources (ALK) have gained approval form the NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure for their Tomingley Gold project. ALK is up 3.05% to 84.5c.

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