Oil prices were off 0.7 percent as worries of oversupply trumped hopes of an output freeze.
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Stock markets in Asia moved sideways on Tuesday as the summer doldrums and a lack of economic data ahead of a widely anticipated speech by the Fed chief kept investors on the sidelines.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was last up 0.14 percent at 94.644 after falling about 1.3 percent last week. At the end of the Fed’s last policy meeting, the central bank said that near-term pressure on the US economy had diminished and hinted that it will closely pay attention to the quality of economic data being reported before its next policy meeting in September.
Futures markets assign a 24 percent chance the hike will come in September, and a roughly 50 percent odds of an increase by the end of the year, according to CME’s FedWatch tool. The Dow gained just Dow 0.1%. The leading index rose to 99.2 in June from 98.4 in the previous month.
Best Buy surged 18.5 percent after the electronics retailer posted an unexpected quarterly profit.
The materials sector gained 0.99 percent, mainly due to Monsanto’s 4 percent rise on a Bloomberg report that the USA seeds company’s merger talks with German suitor Bayer AG were advancing toward a deal.
Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 2.19-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.82-to-1 ratio favored decliners.
Yellen addresses the annual meeting at Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Friday at 10:00 a.m. ET (1400 GMT).
Recent hawkish comments from Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer and New York Fed President William Dudley have raised some investors’ expectations that Yellen might signal that interest rates could rise as soon as September. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said that construction work done in the country fell 3.7% in the second quarter, worse than the 1.9% decline that economists predicted.
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“Yellen’s speech at Jackson Hole will be one that investors will watch closely to see if she will provide a clear idea on the next steps”, Brian Lan, managing director of Singapore-based GoldSilver Central Pte Ltd, said in an e-mail. The Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.03% was down 0.2%, the Shanghai Composite Index SHCOMP, -0.57% was 1% lower and the Kospi SEU, -0.04% was 0.2% lower. Those minutes suggested the central bank was not in a hurry to raise rates.
