US stocks opened lower shortly after the bell rang on Wall Street ahead of this week’s Federal Reserve meeting.
Investors will look for clues as to whether the Fed will raise interest rates in September or postpone it until the end of the year and beyond.
It will be a welcome break from the saga in Europe where Greece appears to have reached a stalemate with its creditors over the conditions of unlocking bailout funds.
A recent round of negotiations lasted under an hour, as creditors appear to be running out of patience with the under-pressure prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Back in the US, all thirty members on the Dow Jones were lower as the index opened 185 points, or 1%, down to 17,715. There were similar losses for the broader S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
In equities, CVS Health said it is to buy discount retailer Target’s pharmacy and clinic business for US$1.9bn.
Pharmacy chain CVS will run more than 1,660 pharmacies through a store-within-a-store format. Shares rose eked out a small gain to US$102.
In other mergers and acquisitions (M&A) news, Standard Pacific and Ryland Group will merge in a US$5.2 billion deal to create the fourth-largest home builder in the US.
Shares in Standard Pacific climbed 5% to US$8.7 while Ryland Group was also 5% higher to US$45.
Away from M&A, Belgium’s privacy watchdog said it is taking Facebook to court over its tracking system and its treatment of non-users. Shares dropped 1.6% to US$80.
Meanwhile, Alibaba said it would kick off a pay-to-watch video subscription service called Tmall Box Office, or TBO in China.
Alibaba has partnered with Chinese TV manufacturers as it aims to create the equivalent of Netflix in Asia. It’s a notoriously difficult market, however, and shares were slightly lower to US$86.50.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 was 64 points down to 6,719 led by Standard Chartered (LON:STAN).
Broker Jefferies knocked its target price down on the bank to 656p, almost a third lower than its current price. Shares eased 2.7% accordingly to 1,035p.