Asian markets are broadly higher today as comment from Chinese officials lifted sentiments. The Chinese premier Li Keqiang said that growth won't be slower than 7%. Meanwhile, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli reiterated the commitment to support infrastructure and social welfare investment. Nikkei rose 147.78 pts but is kept below 15000 level while HK HSI rises over 450 pts so far today. In the currency markets, dollar remains soft with EUR/USD breached 1.32 level while USD/CHF also breached near term support at 0.9356.
According to a Bloomberg survey, half of the economists surveyed expected Fed would reduce the $85b per month to $65b per month in September. That's a larger percentage comparing to 44% in June's survey. And after the reduction, Fed would be buying $35b in treasuries and $30b in MBS per month then. But it should be noted again that Bernanke has left it open as emphasized that Fed's tapering is not "on a preset course". And employment as well as growth data would be crucial to Fed's plan.
Ahead of the Senate subcommittee hearing on commodity trading activities carried out by deposit-taking banks, the Fed is reviewing a rule related to the issue. The Fed spokesperson stated that the central bank "regularly monitors the commodity activities of supervised firms and is reviewing the 2003 determination that certain commodity activities are complementary to financial activities and thus permissible for bank holding companies". The CFTC noted that the area of potential conflicts is in warehousing given the associated risks and admitted that "a thoughtful review of warehousing seems in order".
In Eurozone, ECB executive board member Praet said in an Italian newspaper that ECB's base rate "could be lowered further" as clarified by the "forward guidance message". Also, he noted that the central bank could "continue with offering banks unlimited liquidity" as a non-standard measure.
On the data front, UK BBA mortgage approvals would be released in European session. Canadian retail sales, US house price index and Eurozone consumer confidence would be released in US session.