U.S. Stocks Ease, Oil Surges

U.S stocks finished near the flatline, Wednesday, with the major indexes erasing a brief upward tilt recorded in the afternoon session following the release of the latest Fed minutes. According to the latest minutes, about half of the 19 senior Fed members were in favor of ending the central bank's monthly bond purchases by the end of the year.

Stocks traded with a downside bias for the majority of the session, reacting to data released from China showing an unexpected contraction in June exports and imports.

U.S. Data Dump
Stateside, data released showed wholesale inventories fell 0.5% in May versus consensus of a 0.3% increase. In April, inventories were up 0.2%.

Oil's Day
In commodities, oil was the big news maker, Wednesday, ending up 2.9%, boosted by a sharp drop in inventories and continued unrest in Egypt. At $106.52 per barrel, this was oil's highest close since March 2012. Gold futures closed higher for the third straight session, adding $1.50, or 0.1%, to settle at $1,247.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Here's Where The Markets Stood At Day's End

• Dow Jones Industrial Index was down 8.68 (-0.06%) to 15,291.66
• S&P 500 was up 0.30 (+0.02%) to 1,652.62
• Nasdaq Composite Index was up 16.50 (+0.47%) to 3,520.76

• FTSE 100 was down 16.18 (-0.24%) to 6,497.10
• DAX was down 3.77 (-0.05%) 8,053.71
• CAC 40 was down 6.17 (-0.15%) to 3,837.66
• Nikkei 225 was down 56.30 (-0.39%) to 14,416.60
• Hang Seng Index was up 221.55 (+1.07%) to 20,904.56
• Shanghai China Composite Index was up 42.67 (+2.17%) to 2,008.13

• (+) FDO, EPS of $1.05 beat analyst's estimates of $1.03 from increased revenue for Q3, although guidance for Q4 was lowered to $0.82-$0.87 per shares vs estimates of $0.85 per share.
• (+) NUS, The company raised guidance and was rewarded with a rash of upgrades resulting in a new 52-week high of $75.74.
• (+) CTRP, The company is refuting rumors circulating on Chinese social media that it is the target of a buyout.
• (+) BSDM, Reported a third quarter loss of $0.06 per share, in line with the Capital IQ consensus estimate. Revenues were $1.32 million, versus the analyst estimate of $0.83 million.
• (+) AETI, Company wins a contract to provide an electrical protection and controls solution for a new 65MW peaking power plant in Alberta, Canada.

• (-) BAC, Broad-based weakness on financial stocks causing drop in Bank of America.
• (-) P, Weakness in the stock is being attributed to the Beta 3 demo for BTIG's iTunes Radio iOS.