Good morning traders!

In the US last night, the Dow fell 32 points to 15,452, the Nasdaq lost 8 points at
3,599 and the S&P500 shed 7 points at 1,676.

In Asia today, the Nikkei was recently down 92 points at 14,506 and the Hang Seng
ahead 43 points at 21,356.

WTI crude oil traded at $105.77 a barrel and Brent crude at $108.14.

Gold settled at $1,291 an ounce.

Good hunting!

G.

Plunging ad prices underscore doubts over Yahoo turnaround plan

SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Jul 17, 2013 4:36am BST
(Reuters) - Marissa Mayer's plan to resuscitate Yahoo seems a simple one: get back the eyeballs, sell more ads and charge higher prices. But the chief executive's plan seems to have run into a major snag.

The price the company charges per ad slid 12 percent in the April to June period, six times the decline just a quarter ago - a fall that some say highlights how Yahoo has been caught unprepared for the industry shift to automated, programmatic ad buying.

Nikkei edges up to 8-week closing high before Bernanke testimony

Wed Jul 17, 2013 7:12am BST
TOKYO, July 17 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average
edged up to an eight-week closing high on Wednesday as investors
hesitated in taking large positions before key events, including
the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman's testimony to a congressional
panel later in the day.

The benchmark Nikkei rose 0.1 percent to 14,615.04,
the highest closing since May 22, while the broader Topix
added 0.2 percent to 1,213.24.

Mining strength underpins early gains for the FTSE100

GBP Claimant Count Change -21.2K -7.5K -8.6K

GBP MPC Asset Purchase Facility Votes 0-0-9 2-0-7 3-0-6

GBP MPC Official Bank Rate Votes 0-0-9 0-0-9 0-0-9

GBP Average Earnings Index 3m/y 1.7% 1.4% 1.3%

GBP Unemployment Rate 7.8% 7.8% 7.8%

CHF ZEW Economic Expectations 4.8 2.2

EUR German 10-y Bond Auction 1.57|1.6 1.55|1.5

FTSE100 turns modestly lower on concerns over Ben Bernanke

CAD Foreign Securities Purchases 6.74B 10.23B 14.91B

USD Building Permits 0.91M 1.00M 0.99M

USD Housing Starts 0.84M 0.96M 0.93M

CAD Overnight Rate 1.00% 1.00% 1.00%

Bernanke tells Congress Fed flexible on bond buying

WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 17, 2013 2:48pm BST
(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank still expects to start scaling back its massive bond purchase program later this year, but he left open the option of changing that plan if the economic outlook shifted.

While sticking closely to a time-line to wind down the bond buying that he first outlined last month, Bernanke went out of his way to stress that nothing was set in stone.

Updated :- Bernanke tells Congress Fed flexible on bond buying

WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 17, 2013 4:04pm BST

FTSE 100 ends a roller-coaster session modestly higher