3 Things You Need to Know Before Trading

*Stocks were generally weak in Asian trade. The Nikkei in particular had a bad day as it fell almost 3.6% on the session; the biggest daily decline in about three months. Australia and the Hang Seng were each down by about one percent and Shanghai lost a half percent. European indexes were also broadly lower with both the Footsie and Dax off by one percent. US stock futures are trading down a half percent.

*The Q2 reading of Australia’s Current Account Balance was a deficit of AD$5.6 billion, about one billion less than forecast. Their Net Exports as a percent of GDP rose 0.4% in the quarter.

*The July reading of Australia’s Retail Sales were +0.7% on a month on month basis, beating the estimate of +0.4%.

*The preliminary July reading of Japan’s Industrial Production is +0.3% on a month on month basis, better than the forecast for a decline of 0.2%.

*The July reading of Japan’s Retail Trade was up 0.7% from the month before; it had been forecast to gain 0.5%.

*The August reading of Germany’s Unemployment Rate was steady at 7.6%, as expected. The net change in the number of Unemployed was -17k, just missing the -20k estimate.

*In July there were 48.7k Mortgage Approvals in the UK, according to the Bank of England; a couple thousand more than expected.

*The weekly report on chain store sales from ICSC shows an increase of 0.1% on a week to week basis for the week ended August 28. The Johnson Redbook report of the same thing is due out at 7:55am CDT.

*The June reading of the Case/Shiller Home Price Index is due out at 8:00am CDT, it is expected to be +3.50% on a year over year basis. The August reading of the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index is due out at 8:45am CDT, three minutes earlier for subscribers. The Chicago PMI is expected to be 57.0, which would be down from 62.3 the month before. The August reading of Consumer Confidence is set to be released at 9:00am CDT, it is forecast to improve three tenths on the month to 50.7.

*The FDIC will be out with a report on Q2 bank earnings at 9:00am CDT.

*The minutes from the August 10 FOMC meeting are due to be released at 1:00pm CDT.