Fed in focus, China market weak

All eyes are on the Federal Reserve which will announce its latest monetary policy Thursday including the highly-anticipated decision on interest rates. With more analysts calling for a hold-steady but some economic bodies including the OECD urging an increase it could go either way.

Markets globally are generally higher with a strong lead from Wall Street in the previous session. China’s volatile equities continue to defy the status quo though and despite gains across most Asian markets Shanghai closed lower.

European indexes are generally flat ahead of the Fed’s announcement this afternoon.

North American markets are also expected to open largely unchanged or perhaps slightly lower.
 

	Latest	1 month ago	1 year ago
North America (previous session)
US Dow Jones	16,739.95 (-0.84 per cent)	-4.59 per cent	-2.43 per cent
TSX Composite	13,763.78 (+2.24 per cent)	-3.42 per cent	-10.97 per cent
Europe (at 5.45am ET)
UK FTSE	6,217.05 (-0.20 per cent)	-5.09 per cent	-8.32 per cent
German DAX	10,250.34 (+0.23 per cent)	-6.31 per cent	+6.09 per cent
Asia (at close)
China CSI 300	3,237.00 (-2.18 per cent)	-20.62 per cent	+34.80 per cent
Japan Nikkei	18,432.27 (+1.43 per cent)	-10.61 per cent	+16.01 per cent
Other Data (at 5.45am ET)
Oil (Brent)	Oil (WTI)	Gold	Can. Dollar
48.94 (-1.63 per cent)	46.44 (-1.51 per cent)	1117.50 (-0.13 per cent)	U$0.7574
			Aus. Dollar
			U$0.7165