Markets Right Now: Stocks slip on Wall Street

But about 71 percent of 62 economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal this month believed that the Fed would wait until December to raise rates.

When Janet Yellen steps to the microphone Friday morning at an annual central bank forum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, investors will be listening for one thing above all: any hint of the Federal Reserve chair’s expected timetable for the next interest rate increase.

Janet Yellen, chair of the US Federal Reserve, said improvements in the economy suggested the world’s biggest economy might be almost ready for an increase.

In early European trade London slipped 0.1 percent, while Frankfurt and Paris lost 0.2 percent.

At the beginning of the year, the Fed projected it would raise rates four times this year. “They are looking at lower natural interest rates in the U.S. That doesn’t give the market any reason to buy dollars aggressively”.

In an interview with CNBC after Yellen’s speech, Fischer, the central bank’s No. 2 official, said the Fed chair’s comments were a sign of how close policymakers could be to raising rates if data kept pointing to a good economic outlook.

“After the initial Yellen headlined-induced stumble, gold has rallied impressively, helped by a weakening dollar”, said Tai Wong, director of base and precious metals trading for BMO Capital Markets in NY.

Elsewhere in commodities, the December gold contract advanced US$1.30 to US$1,325.90 an ounce, October natural gas went up 2.8 cents to US$2.91 per mmBTU and September copper contracts remained relatively unchanged.

For this week, the Dow fell 0.8 percent, and the S&P 500 was down 0.7 percent.

Investors also digested the second read on second-quarter USA gross domestic product, which showed growth of 1.1%, down from the initial read of 1.2%.

“Exchange rates did move quite a bit” after Yellen’s comments, and that yen weakening is a small positive for Japanese shares, said Toru Suehiro, the senior market economist at Mizuho Securities Co.in Tokyo.

Although US government data earlier on Friday showed the economy growing only sluggishly in the second quarter, Yellen said a lot of new jobs were being created and economic growth would likely continue at a moderate pace.

Janet Yellen has given her speech and her words, as parsed by CNN/Money, indicate that, “a rate hike this year is still on the table”.

Gold futures for December delivery rose 0.8 percent to $1,335.40 an ounce at 10.52am on the Comex in NY. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.4 percent.

Before the Tuesday’ s opening bell, Best Buy reported GAAP diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of 0.56 US dollar for the second quarter ended July 30, 2016, an increase of 22 percent from a year ago. Brent crude, used to price oil internationally, rose 30 cents to $49.97 a barrel. The euro fell to $1.1183 from $1.1281.

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