Market Volume Low As Traders Focus On Next Weeks Events

With the Federal Reserve in black out mode and a lack of data on the economic schedule markets are expected to remain fairly quiet today. China is out for a local holiday and Japan is closed on Monday. The US dollar has been holding onto its gains as the Fed and the BoJ meeting remain the focus of the markets. The greenback is trading at 95.30 and the euro is steady down 3 points at 1.1241, the pound is down 5 points at 1.3236 and the Loonie has declined 4 points to 1.3152.

In Asia this morning the USD/JPY eased 5 points to 102.03 and matching the declines in the Aussie which is holding at 0.7514 and the kiwi is flat at 0.7314. Markets are one big yawn. Asian markets are up with Japan’s Nikkei up 0.42% ahead of next week’s FOMC Meeting. Shanghai is closed for the second on mid-autumn festival.

US markets gained on Thursday after weak U.S. retail sales data undermined the argument that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week. European markets closed broadly up on Thursday after the Bank of England kept rates at 0.25% and announced there would be no change to its £70 billion ($92 billion) quantitative easing program. Dow Jones closed at 18212, advancing 178 points. the S&P 500 was up 21 points to close at 2147 and Nasdaq gained 76 points or 1.5% to close at 5250. European markets also closed positive, FTSE advanced by 57 points to close at 6730, CAC was up 3 points to close at 4373 and DAX gained 53 points to close at 10431.

Wall Street closed higher led by gains in technology and health care companies. Apple extends its gains on Thursday as investors became more optimistic about early sales of its newest iPhone models. Further, weak economic data rest speculation that

US Federal Reserve may not be as aggressive in raising interest rates. The Labor Department said producer prices fell in August as gas and food prices declined. Further, report by the Commerce Department showed that U.S. retail sales declined in August, the first since March. Sales at retail stores, online and at restaurants fell 0.3% in August to a seasonally adjusted $456.32 billion last month, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

Moreover, data showed that weekly jobless claims ticked up slightly to 260,000 but the level of layoffs continues to be the lowest since the 1970s. Also, Industrial production in the US contracted in August, fell 0.4% in August, after expanding in the previous two months, the Federal Reserve said on Thursday. Investors have been closely looking at economic data, evaluating the possibility the central bank raises interest rates.

US business inventories were virtually unchanged in July after rising by 0.2 percent in June. Inventories had been expected to inch up by 0.1 percent. While retail inventories fell by 0.3 percent in July after climbing by 0.4 percent in June, manufacturing inventories inched up by 0.1 percent after coming in flat in the previous month.