Federal Reserve: Modest Economic Growth Continues

“We will not take decisions until we are ready, we will not reveal our hand prematurely and we will not provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of the negotiation”, prime minister Theresa May told parliament. Despite the labour market nearing full employment, broad-based wage pressures have so far been slow to pick up.

It was last ahead 0.2% at JPY 101.54 per $1.

Apple shares were up 0.19 percent at $107.89. The benchmark’s energy subindex shed 1.38 percent, the materials subindex lost 1.43 percent and the heavily-weighted financial subindex fell 0.44 percent.

The Fed’s latest beige book report said that commercial real estate contacts “in several districts” cited only modest expectations for sales and construction activity moving forward, “due in part to economic uncertainty surrounding the November elections”.

The S&P 500 index and the Dow were slightly lower on Wednesday as investors awaited a key report by the Federal Reserve to gauge the health of the US economy. In general, expectations of wage growth for the coming months were modest. China is a key market for Australian commodities. That would be an improvement from the first six months of the year, when growth was barely 1 percent.

Australia saw its trade deficit narrow to A$2.4 billion ($1.84 billion U.S.) in July, with the value of exports rising 3% and imports remaining unchanged.

At that same meeting, Dennis Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, said he sees “two rate hikes as possible” through the rest of the year – likely in September and December.

At 9:45 a.m. EDT the Dow Jones industrial average was down 9.38 points, or 0.05 percent, at 18,528.74, the S&P 500 was down 0.45 points, or 0.02 percent, at 2,186.03 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 4.43 points, or 0.08 percent, at 5,280.33. Oil prices also rose about 0.45 per cent.

The European Central Bank has a monetary policy meeting and the USA jobless claims were due later in the global day. USA crude futures settled up $0.67 to $45.50 a barrel, and jumped almost 3 percent in post-settlement trading, while Brent surged up $0.72 cents to close at $47.98.

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