Asian stocks fell on Wednesday ahead of a Fed meeting later today. China's Shanghai index slipped 0.60%. Australia's S&P\ASX 200 index fell 0.11%. Korea's KOSPI retreated 0.56%. India's Nifty lost 0.35%. Japanese stocks bucked the trend, with Nikkei gaining 0.49%.
Wall Street ended Tuesday on negative territory as investors assume caution ahead of Fed. Dow Jones fell 0.24% to 17,581. NASDAQ fell 0.09% to 5,030. S&P 500 dipped 0.26% to 2,065.
Euro was on the retreat, falling 0.10% against the dollar to $1.1033. Against Yen it hit a fresh seven-week low before stabilizing at 132.86. Against Sterling it slid to 0.7208.
Dollar was largely flat ahead of the Fed, with the dollar index inching 0.2% ahead to 97.05. It fell 0.03% against Sterling to 1.5305. Against Yen it eased a similar 0.03% to 120.41.
Australian dollar took a beating after inflation data disappointed, raising prospects of further easing by Australia's central bank. The Aussie hit a three-week low at $0.7119. Other commodity currencies were worn out as oil dropped. Canadian dollar fell to a four-week trough at C$1.3274.
Oil futures stabilized after a big fall yesterday, with Brent futures for December losing 2 cents, or 0.04% to $46.84 a barrel. U.S. crude futures rose 5 cents, or 0.13% to $43.25 a barrel. Traders will be waiting for the weekly U.S. crude oil inventories survey, forecast to have risen 3.7M, but traders will be cautious as last week's result missed the forecast by a wide margin, rising a heavy 8M.
Spot gold gained $1.90, or 0.16% to $1,167.70 an ounce. Silver rose 3 cents, or 0.23% to $15.90 an ounce.
From Germany, a survey for import prices for September is forecast to have fallen 0.2% m\m. beating the forecast will give a breather to the beaten up Euro.
From the U.S., Goods trade balance is forecast to come t -64.9B in September, better than August's -67.2B. The lesser the negative number is, the more indicative it is of more exports momentum in the U.S., hence pushing the Dollar up.