What to know before trading today

*Stocks were generally little changed in Asian trade. The Nikkei fell a quarter percent on the session, while Australia gained a quarter percent, the Hang Seng added a fraction and Shanghai was unchanged. European indexes are generally down a fraction and US stock futures are lower by a quarter percent or so as I write.

*The August reading of the National Australia Bank Business Confidence Index was up to 11 from 2 the month before, the best showing in five months.

*The final July reading of Japan’s Industrial Production was revised down to -0.2% on a month on month basis from a previously reported +0.3%.

*Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan won a Democratic Party of Japan election allowing him to keep the job that he has held for the last three months. Kan fended off the challenge of ruling party cohort Ichiro Ozawa who is a big advocate of weakening the Yen in order to help the country’s exporters; Kan has not shown himself to be quite so adamant about reversing the currency’s trend and as a result the Dollar/Yen rallied to another fifteen year high near 83.00 after the votes were counted.

*The August reading of Germany’s Wholesale Price Index was up 1.6% on a monthly basis, five times the expected increase.

*The September reading of Germany’s ZEW Survey of Economic Sentiment was surprisingly weak; falling to -4.3 from 14.0 in August; it had been expected to fall only four points to 10.0. The latest result is the lowest since February 2009.

*The August reading of the UK Consumer Price Index is +0.5% on a month on month basis and is +3.1% year over year. Both results were slightly above the forecasts.

*The August reading of the NFIB Small Business Optimism Survey was up seven tenths to 88.8, but that was two tenths under the forecast. This index averaged 100.6 in the five years prior to the onset of the recession in December 2007. The NFIB chief economist said that “small business owners are expecting sub-par growth in the second half of 2010. What businesses need are customers, giving them a reason to hire and make capital expenditures.”

*The weekly report on chain store sales from ICSC showed an increase of 0.8% on a week on week basis for the week ended September 11. Sales were said to +2.8% for the week when compared to the same week from a year ago. The Johnson Redbook report on the same thing is due out at 7:55am CDT.

*The August reading of Retail Sales is due out at 7:30am CDT. Headline sales are expected to rise 0.3% on a month on month basis and the forecast for sales ex-autos is also +0.3%. The July reading of Business Inventories is due out at 9:00am CDT; the estimate calls for +0.7% from the month before. Also scheduled for 9:00am is the IBD/TIPP Index of Economic Optimism for September, it is expected to rise fractionally to 44.0.