OREANDA-NEWS. October 14, 2011. US stocks closed flat on Wednesday with Financials (+2.53%) and Industrials (+1.26%) as the leaders. S&P 500 index added 0.98%, Russell 2000 Index – 1.66%. VIX went down by 4.87% to 31.26.  Barroso’s Eurozone plan inspired optimists but no detailed measures were revealed. Fed’s minutes showed 2 members as radical doves, 3 as radical hawks with the rest being in the middle.

EURUSD closed near 1.38.

Asian stocks rose on Thursday. Shanghai stock indices rose 1.4% on average. S&P/ASX added 0.96%. Korean Kospi inched up by 0.75%. Nikkei was up by 0.97%.

The European stock indices futures fell slightly in the morning - Dow Jones Stoxx 50 futures was down by 0.37% while Dax futures lost 0.33%. S&P futures lost 0.17%.

In the US, Trade balance, initial jobless claims will be in focus today.

JP Morgan and Google are to present quarterly earnings reports.