US open: Wall Street resumes grind higher
Wall Street resumed its grind higher ahead of the release of the minutes of the US central bank's last policy meeting as - for the moment at least - worries around recent events on the Korean peninsula recede in the rear view mirror.
At of 1737 BST, the Dow Jones Industrials was 0.29% or 63.65 points higher at 22,063.00, alongside a gain of 7.13 points or 0.29% to 2,469.25 for the S & P 500 and a 28.31 point or 0.45% advance to 6,362 in the Nasdaq Composite.
Ahead of those Fed minutes, Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, said: "The Federal Reserve has become noticeably less hawkish in recent months as inflation has failed to pick up as much as policy makers had anticipated, causing some to question whether the current pace of tightening is appropriate. I expect the minutes will reflect this growing unease within the Fed which could once again weigh on interest rate expectations.
"Markets are currently pricing in only a 49% chance of another rate hike this year and even that has only been achieved in the last couple of days following some hawkish remarks from William Dudley."
Meanwhile, and on the economic front, the Department of Commerce reported that housing starts in the States fell by 4.8% month-on-month in July to reach an annualised pace of 1.155m, undershooting economists' forecast for a small rise to 1.225m by a wide margin.
Building permits were also lower, falling 4.1% to 1.223m (consensus: 12.4m).
However, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, pointed out how weakness in both releases was concentrated in the multi-family segment
Even so, Shepherdson conceded that: "The trend in single-family construction, which accounts for about three-quarter of all activity, flattened off late last year and is still headed sideways. We hope for a modest increase by late summer, but with mortgage applications recently breaching their upward trend we can’t expect sustained gains in construction, and activity could easily soften again in the fall."
West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for prompt month delivery were down -0.47% to $47.33 a barrel on NYMEX, with traders seemingly brushing off Department of Energy data that showed a 8.99m barrel drop in US oil inventories last week.
Instead, they seemed to be focusing on figures showing a 79,000 barrel a day jump in domestic US oil output to reach 9.50 mb/d.
Still on the economic calendar for Wednesday, the minutes of the July Fed policy meeting were due out at 1900 BST.
Amazon.com was in the spotlight on the corporate front after president Donald Trump tweeted: "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the US are being hurt - many jobs being lost!"
Nevertheless, investors were undaunted, with the stock edging higher by 0.09% to $983.66 in response.
Speaking of retailers, shares in Target were sharply higher after the discounter reported a 1.3% gain in like-for-like sales for the latest quarter, edging past forecasts for a rise of 1.1%.