Stocks are likely to be flat on the open today. There is little economic new to drive trading, following yesterday’s decision by the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady and back off on its previous concerns about deflation.

Here in Canada, the only economic report from is about industrial capacity use, which edged down in the third quarter. The main factors cited by Statistics Canada in this drop is the value of the Canadian dollar rising against the U.S. dollar, and the mid-August power blackout.

Industries operated at 81.2% of their capacity in the third quarter, down marginally from 81.3% in the second quarter. This was the lowest rate since the fourth quarter of 2001, when the rate hit 80.6%. It was also 3.7 percentage points below the most recent high of 84.9% in the fourth quarter of 2000. This report is unlikely to affect trading.

In Asia markets finished mixed, overnight. Tokyo’s Nikkei average closed down 213.72 points at 9,910.56 after Tuesday’s losses on Wall Street. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index up 4.74 points to 12,398.38.

European stock markets are lower due to worries about corporate profits. The German DAX index is down 1.2% at midday. The Paris CAC40 is down 1%. In London, the FTSE 100 index has lost 1.5%, declining 65.5 points to 4,314.1.

On Monday, the Toronto stock market’s main index past the 8,000 mark for the first time since June 2001, but it receded in the day, closing with a loss of 14.83 points at 7,975.94.

The Dow Jones industrial average also reached a high-water mark, rising briefly above 10,000, for the first time since May 2002, but it ended at 9,923.42, down 41.85.

The Nasdaq composite fell 40.53 points, or 2%, to 1,908.32. The Standard & Poor’s 500 declined 9.12 points to 1,060.18.