The Aussie market looks set to open lower later this morning after US stocks fell for a third straight session overnight amid disappointing earnings from Caterpillar, American Express and others.

The September SPI futures contract is down 20 points, at 5513.

No major local economic or equities news is expected today.

Key numbers:

– SPI futures down 20pts at 5513

– AUD at 73.54 US cents, 91.07 Japanese yen, 66.90 Euro cents and 47.39 British pence

– On Wall St, S&P 500 -0.6%, Dow -0.7%, Nasdaq -0.5%

– In Europe, Stoxx 50 flat, FTSE -0.2%, CAC flat, Dax flat

– Iron ore slid 0.1% to $US51.72 a dry ton

– Spot gold down $US4.16 or 0.4% to $US1090.08 an ounce

– LME copper down 1.7% to $US5272.50 a metric ton

– Brent crude down 76 US cents or 1.4% to $US55.37 a barrel

What’s on today:

US new home sales, flash PMI manufacturing, Earnings – American Airlines, China flash PMI manufacturing, Europe flash manufacturing PMI.

Stocks in focus:

RBC Capital Markets maintains an “underperform” on BHP Billiton and a price target of $25 a share. “Despite multiple changes to our asset production profiles over the coming 12 months, excluding one-off’s, we see little impact to our FY15 underlying EBIT forecast post the 4Q15 operations review.”

Australian Stock Report issued a “buy” on Macquarie Group (MQG) and said it expects the share price to hit $100. In May, Macquarie said its 2016 full-year result would be “slightly up” on this year’s $1.6 billion profit. “But they have now opted to ditch the word slightly,” said Chris Conway, head of research at Australian Stock Report. “We are expecting a result in the order of $1.8 billion for 2016, in line with a record 2008 result.”

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