MARKET PREVIEW

Americans boosted their spending 0.4% in June, the Commerce
Department said Tuesday, the second consecutive monthly increase.
But adjusting for inflation, spending fell 0.1 %, following a flat reading
in May. Inflation?adjusted spending hasn't increased since February,
the department said. Personal income, meanwhile, dropped 1.3% in
June, the eighth straight decline and steepest fall in four years.
Incomes were inflated in May due to one?time payments from the
Obama administration's stimulus program. But wages and salaries
also fell 0.4% in June.

U.K. consumer confidence rose to the highest level in more than a
year last month as house prices stopped falling, Nationwide Building
Society said. An index of sentiment climbed to 60 in July, the highest
since May 2008 and up from 59 in June, Britain's biggest customerowned
lender said in an e?mailed statement released today. TNS
surveyed 1,000 people for Nationwide between June 22 and July 19.
Legislation to inject more money into a popular "cash?for?clunkers"
program aimed at increasing US automobile sales will pass the Senate
before the start of a month?long recess at the end of this week,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday.

The U.S. SEC will seek to ban flash trades that give some brokerages
an advance look at orders, Senator Charles Schumer said, citing a
conversation with SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. Schapiro assured
Schumer in a phone call yesterday that the agency plans to ban the
practice, according to a statement from his office. In a separate
release, Schapiro said she has asked her staff to draft rules that
"quickly eliminate the inequity" that flash orders cause.

Citigroup plans to sell 20 businesses in consumer finance area, many
of them located in Europe, its Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said in an
interview with Singapore's Business Times.

Honda Motor Co., Japan's second? biggest carmaker, will increase
global vehicle production to meet higher?than?forecast sales in
emerging markets.

Most Asian stocks rose, led by finance shares as Axa Asia Pacific
Holdings Ltd. returned to profitability. Losses from Isuzu Motors Ltd.
and Elpida Memory Inc. dragged auto and technology companies
lower.