Dollar remains under pressure, bitcoin with a monster rally, more earnings to come.
Here are 4 tips for today's trading. This will help you decide where you should invest and what to look for:
1. Dollar continue to loss weight
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six global peers, inched down around 0.1% to 93.20, after touching an overnight low of 93.12.
With no major economic reports on today's calendar, market players looked ahead to monthly inflation indicators due later in the week for fresh clues on the timing of the next Federal Reserve rate hike.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Monday the central bank doesn't need to raise rates in the near term because inflation is unlikely to rise significantly, despite improvements in the labor market.
2. Bitcoin explodes to new highs
Bitcoin prices moved toward the $3,500-level as a monster rally continued amid growing optimism over the digital currency's future following last week's relatively uneventful 'hard fork' split.
Prices were last at $3,469.00 on the on the U.S.-based Bitfinex exchange, up $120.80, or 3.7%. It rose to an all-time peak of $3,483.80 earlier (BTC/USD).
The cryptocurrency has now more than tripled in value for the year, taking the total value of Bitcoin in circulation to more than $55 billion.
3. Markets await OPEC conclusion
Market players looked ahead to the outcome of a meeting of officials from some OPEC and non-member nations in Abu Dhabi for fresh details on how the group can increase compliance with production cuts that began at the start of the year.
According to recent calculations, compliance fell to 86% in July, the lowest level since January.
Oil prices were higher, with U.S. crude last at $49.70 a barrel, up 31 cents, or about 0.6%, while Brent oil added 26 cents, or roughly 0.5%, to $52.63 a barrel.
Investors also awaited weekly data from the American Petroleum Institute on stockpiles of crude and refined products, with a report due at 20:30 GMT.
4. Global data disappoints, earnings on tap
China reported weaker-than-anticipated exports and imports for July, raising concerns over whether global demand is starting to cool. The Asian nation's export growth slowed to 7.2% in July, the weakest pace since February and cooling from an 11.3% rise in June. Analysts had expected a 10.9% gain.
Imports rose 11.0%, the slowest growth since December and down from a 17.2% rise in the previous month. That also missed expectations of 16.6% growth. That left the country with a trade surplus of $46.74 billion for the month, the highest since January.
In Europe, data showed that German exports dropped by 2.8%, the sharpest fall since August 2015 that ended five consecutive months of growth. Imports declined 4.5%, the biggest drop since January 2009. Both figures confounded market expectations that had pointed to exports edging down 0.3% and imports rising by 0.2%. The trade surplus widened to €21.2 billion, reaching its highest level since August 2016.
Meanwhile, dozens of companies are expected to release earnings today in one of the last big waves of the earnings season. Ahead of the opening bell, results are due from Dean Foods, CVS Health, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Time Inc, Wayfair, SeaWorld, Norwegian Cruise Line and Virtu Financial.
Disney, Priceline, TripAdvisor, Hertz Global, Monster Beverage, Continental Resource and Zillow report after the market close.
U.S. stock futures pointed to a muted open on Wall Street, with the blue-chip Dow futures down 5 points; the S&P 500 futures dipped 2 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 futures shed 3 points.
