Today's highlights: U.S. Relevant News releases

U.S. Unemployment Claims, U.S. Producer Price Index and U.S. Current Account releases are due at 8:00AM EST.

Last week's jobless claims had dropped to 451K. Expected forecast is that they will rise to 463K. A continuation of the fall would have an impact if this index drops below 430K. On the other hand, traders could appreciate a decrease on inflation in a slightly positive previous release of PPI Index. Today's expectations are focused on a small rise from 0.2% in July to 0.3%. The Core PPI could possibly rise a 0.1%, less than last month's rise of 0.3%. U.S. Current Account, which is released quarterly, is a duplicate of the monthly Trade Balance data. Economists are forecasting that the deficit could reach 124B, which represents an increase of 15B over last quarter's figures of 109B.

U.S. TIC Long-Term Purchases and U.S. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index are due at 8:30AM EST.

TIC Index measures the balance of the respective values of domestic and foreign investment in the US market and this time is expected to fall to 37.9B from previous month's figures of 44.4B. The Philly Fed Manufacturing Index, which represents an important measurement of industrial economic health, heavily dropped -7.7 points last month, which is a symptom of deterioration of the economy. As a counterpart, predictions point today to a small rise into the positive at 0.9 points.

Finally, at 9:30AM EST, The US Secretary of Treasury, Timothy Geithner, will be speaking before the Senate Banking Commitee, In Washington DC.

This time he will be testifying on Treasury Department's Report on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies, which usually has a direct influence on the markets as the traders expect any possible signals of public and international announcements of US Government economic policy shifts.