Market Buzz: Longing for news from Europe

Russian markets are likely to open flat Wednesday amid a lack of drivers at home and abroad ahead of the European Central Bank meeting later this week.

Russian stocks traded flat Tuesday amid uncertainty at the European floors. The MICEX shed 0.2% and the RTS lost less than 0.1%.The Moody’s decision to cut the European Union’s outlook to negative pushed down European stock markets on Tuesday, with drug makers and resource shares posting losses. A drop in US manufacturing activity also weighed down the indices. The Stoxx Europe 600 tumbled 1.1%, erasing gains of the previous day. The German DAX 30 slid 1.2% and France’s CAC 40 dropped 1.6%.US stocks on Tuesday ended mixed as investors returned from a holiday. The expectations on Apple Inc.’s next iPhone launch supported tech stocks, countering data that manufacturing activity had contracted for a third month in August. The Dow Jones lost 0.4%, the S&P 500 fell 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.3%.Asian shares headed south Wednesday with commodities among decliners amid weaker data on US manufacturing. South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.3%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.1%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.65%. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.65% and China’s Shanghai Composite shed 0.1%.