Oil quotes on Wednesday crumbled after EIA statistics came out showing US oil reserves increasing 1.671 million barrels instead of by an expected fall of 2.257 million barrels. As a result, Brent dropped below the significant $43.3 support, returning to April values and then heading back into a narrow range of $43.5-$43.7 where it spent all on Thursday’s Asian session.

Asian stock markets are down. The Nikkei 225 fell by 0.9%. The ASX Australia was down 0.4%. The Shanghai Composite decreased 0.2%, and the Hang Seng was down by 0.3%. Futures for the S&P500 were trading at 2165; 0.2% above the closing level of the previous trading day.

The number of active trade marks in China by the end of June reached 11.223 million, thereby being around a third of the total in the world. In the first half of 2016, the number of applications to register trademarks in China exceeded 1.74 million and this number could hit 3.5 million by the end of the year. China has been the wold leader by number of trademark applications submitted since 2002.

The USD was trading down against the yuan this morning at 6.6622 (-0.0078 or -0.12%).

At the end of their two-day meeting, the US Fed members left the interest rate unchanged as expected. According to the US regulator, the economic risks are down at the moment, but the FOMC will continue to keep an eye on inflation, the global economic situation and financial markets. US inflation is still under the 2% target level due to a fall in the price of energy. The situation with inflation has been changing slightly in the past few months. Members of the committee are convinced that economic activity will grow steadily and the growth in consumer prices will be low, but enough to reach 2%. The market’s first reaction was a short-term strengthening of the dollar and then it slightly weakened. The EURUSD rose quickly to 1.1060 after falling to 1.0960. The pair was trading at around 1.1070 on Thursday morning.