International markets peeled back overnight, following on from the weakness we saw in Asia yesterday.

In Europe the FTSE (+0.1%) closed largely unchanged, whilst the CAC (-0.3%) and DAX (-0.5%) endured modest declines.

Stateside, the Dow shed 77 points (-0.7%), whilst the broader S&P 500 lost 1% and the Nasdaq gave up 1.2%.

The euro weakened against the majority of its most traded counterparts after Germen and French leaders rejected the issuance of bond by the European currency region to contain its sovereign debt crisis.

Elsewhere, the Canadian dollar fell the most in a week amid a decline in oil and European growth slowing more than forecast. The loonie has lost 4.4% against the greenback since reaching a three-year high on 26 July.

Crude oil lost ground overnight, shedding 1.4% to settle at US$86.65 a barrel, whilst gold advanced 1.5% to settle at US$1785 an ounce.

In company news, CSL saw its FY net profit fall 11% to $940.6 million after it suffered a $116 million hit from unfavourable foreign exchange rates.

WDC's 1H profit of $651 million fell short of analyst forecasts of an average $732 million.

Today's session will bring us data in the form of the Melbourne Institute leading index (10:30am, AEST) and the wage price index (11:30am, AEST).

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Morning Market Analysis: August 17 is a post from: Australian Stock Report Market Pulse Blog