By Stewart Lewis
(September 16 – 09:00 ET) – Stocks are expected to open slightly higher today. Traders will be looking for bargains after a late sell-off dampened yesterday’s market rallies initiated by a benign U.S. Consumer Price Index report. The Standard & Poor futures index for December was up 1.8 points at 1,333.
Overnight, the rising strength of the yen contributed to the steepest decline in Tokyo’s Nikkei share index this year. In late trading in Asia and Europe, the dollar was quoted at 103.98 yen, down from 104.69 yen on Wednesday. The drop in U.S. markets also contributed to the sell-off in Tokyo.
The good news for the Yen is that Japan’s two biggest life insurers plan to buy more domestic government bonds. They are betting economic recovery will lift the yen and fuel their country’s finances – instead of inflation.
In Canada, manufacturers’ shipments edged 0.1 percent lower to C$40.3 billion in July. This has principally been caused by longer than normal plant shutdowns in the motor vehicle industry, says Statistics Canada. Except for the automotive sector, which declined 3.1 percent, shipments increased 0.8 percent in the month.
Statscan says there were gains in 15 of 22 manufacturing sectors, accounting for 55.8 percent of all shipments. The largest declines in July were in the motor vehicle industry, which fell 2.4 percent. The auto parts and accessories industry dropped 4.9 percent. The machinery industry fell 4.7 percent.