DJI- NEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged higher on Wednesday in the lightest trading of the year as investors waited for a key speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday.
Daily volume this week has been very low, even for a seasonally slow period, with the market recording three of the four lowest volume full sessions of 2012. The low volume reflected investors' reluctance to place big bets before Bernanke's speech.
What little excitement there was came from data showing pending home sales rose 2.4 percent in July, a bigger gain than expected, according to the National Association of Realtors. (Full Story) An index of housing shares .HGX was up 0.5 percent.
"We're seeing consistently good numbers out of the housing market. It's hard to get too negative on the U.S. economy with the housing market doing better than expected," said Paul Zemsky, chief investment officer of Multi-Asset Strategies at ING Investment Management in New York.
"I think the U.S. is doing pretty well today, given what the rest of the world has done," he said. The Shanghai Composite index .SSEC hit its lowest close since February 2009, while the S&P 500 is trading near a four-year high.
Bernanke addresses a conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and could announce new measures to boost growth. He is expected to stoke expectations for a third round of quantitative easing, though he may not detail the timing of the Fed's action. (Full Story)
Volume traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the Amex, was 4.41 billion shares compared with the previous low on Monday of 4.46 billion. The year-to-date average is about 6.6 billion.
Shares of customer reviews website Yelp Inc YELP.N jumped 22.5 percent to $22.37 in a bit of a surprise for investors as it was the day insiders were free to sell their holdings. (Full Story)
The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI inched up 4.49 points, or 0.03 percent, to 13,107.48. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX rose 1.19 points, or 0.08 percent, to 1,410.49. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC gained 4.04 points, or 0.13 percent, to 3,081.19.
NYMEX- NEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters) - U.S. crude futures fell on Wednesday on expectations that damage from Hurricane Isaac to Gulf of Mexico oil production will be limited and in reaction to data showing that crude oil stocks rose sharply last week in the United States.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose 3.78 million barrels to 364.52 million in the week to Aug. 24, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, against expectations stocks would fall 1.5 million barrels.
CBOT SOYBEAN- Aug 29 (Reuters) - Soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose 1.8 percent on Wednesday, their biggest rise in a week, on concerns about rain from Hurricane Isaac slowing the soy harvest in the U.S. Mississippi River Delta region, traders said.
• Technical buying and spillover strength from a 3 percent surge in CBOT wheat lent support.
• Torrential rains from Hurricane Isaac, with accumulations of 20 inches or more in some areas, threaten the soybean and rice crops in the Deep South, an agricultural meteorologist said.
• Thai feed mills have bought up to 1 million tonnes of soymeal in recent deals, while Vietnam is in the market to cover some 200,000 tonnes, traders said, as Asian buyers resume purchases after staying away for more than two months.
• A record-setting rally in grains is unlikely to dent demand from Southeast Asia with strong growth in Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy, and rising poultry exports from Thailand driving consumption, a U.S. soybean industry official said.
• Soybeans rose despite weaker cash basis bids for soybeans at the U.S. Gulf. The CIF soy basis was steady to weak on limited spot demand and as shippers shut down operations as Isaac made landfall near New Orleans.
FCPO- SINGAPORE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Malaysian crude palm oil futures slipped to the lowest in nearly a fortnight, as traders booked profits with market focus shifting to rising stocks level in the world's second-largest producer.
Palm oil posted two straight weeks of gains as the worst drought in 56 years ravaged soybean crops in the U.S. Midwest, limiting soybean oil supply and raising demand prospects of the cheaper palm oil.
But prices have retreated by more than 2 percent this week, as market players eyed a build-up in Malaysian palm oil stocks on higher production in August.
"At the moment we still see prices heading towards no-man's land, although my view is that it's more on the bearish side rather than a bullish front," said Ker Chung Yang, commodities analyst with Phillip Futures in Singapore.
"Stocks are going to rise but the level I'm looking at is around 2.1-2.15 million tonnes."
At closing, the benchmark November 2012 contract FCPOc3 on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange fell nearly 1 percent to 3,000 ringgit ($961) per tonne. Prices earlier hit 2,978 ringgit, the lowest level since Aug. 17.
Total traded volume stood at 40,158 lots of 25 tonnes each, much higher than the usual 25,000 lots.
REGIONAL EQUITY- BANGKOK, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Shares in Thailand and Indonesia fell to three-week lows on Wednesday amid a broad sell-off in large cap stocks while Singapore and Malaysia ended nearly flat as investors cut back on risk ahead of a speech by the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman.
The main Thai index .SETI close down 1.05 percent at 1,220.16, the lowest close since Aug. 10. Jakarta's Composite Index .JKSE slipped 1.2 percent to 4,093.17, the lowest close since Aug. 8.
Bucking the trend, Vietnamese shares snapped a two-day losing streak after Standard & Poor's said the problem at a Vietnamese bank was not contagious.
The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange's VN Index .VNI gained 1.9 percent, regaining some of the 3.5 percent loss of the previous two sessions. It suffered 7.9 percent drop last week as the arrests of Asia Commercial Bank's ACB.HN top executives worried investors of spreading banking risks.
