What you need2know:

• SPI futures up 1 point to 5474

• AUD at 90.26 US cents, 96.73 Japanese yen, 69.77 Euro cents and 55.60 British pence.

• On Wall St, S&P 500 flat, Dow -0.3%, Nasdaq -1%

• In Europe, Euro Stoxx 50 -0.1%, FTSE flat, CAC -0.3%, DAX +0.1%

• Iron ore jumps 3.9 per cent to $US85.20 per metric tonne

• Spot gold up 0.3% to $US1233.44 an ounce

• Brent oil adds 0.1% to $US98.04 per barrel

What’s on today

Australia: RBA board’s September 2 meeting minutes, weekly consumer sentiment, RBA assistant governor Christopher Kent speaks on the economy in Sydney, ABS September-quarter commodities report, US August producer prices, US Federal Reserve FOMC begins two-day meeting (September 16-17).

Stocks to watch

■ Hartleys Research has a “speculative buy” on Ironbark Zinc and a 12-month price target of 34¢ a share as it sees the upside as still enormous if zinc prices keep going up.

■ Hartleys Research was maintaining a “neutral” recommendation on Regis Resources on valuation grounds, but said it might update its model following the reporting of the full-year earnings results. It has a 12-month price target of $1.61 on the gold stock.

■ RBC Capital Markets dropped Transurban Group to “sector perform” from “outperform” and has a price target of $8 a share on the toll road manager and developer.

■ Gold stocks are likely to rise over the next year from their current undervalued levels. Additionally merger and acquisition activity could heat up with any rise in the gold price towards $US1400 an ounce, according to Joe Foster, Portfolio Manager of Van Eck Global’s gold strategies.

Currencies

The Australian dollar had recovered some ground to US90.33¢ early Tuesday morning AEST, having fallen as low as US89.88¢ on Monday.

The dam wall may have finally broken for the Australian dollar following the currency’s plunge below the US92¢ handle, says David de Ferranti, market analyst at FXCM.

“The long-held line in the sand for the AUD/USD was crossed last week amid a parabolic increase in FX market volatility and firming Fed policy tightening bets. Over the coming week, a void of major local economic data alongside what is likely to be another rehashed set of RBA Minutes may leave the currency lacking catalysts to spark a recovery. The threshold for fresh news flow to yield a shift in sentiment is high, as demonstrated by the lacklustre response from traders to the phenomenal Australian August jobs report.

“On balance, recent local data and rhetoric from the Reserve Bank reinforces the prospect that rates will remain on hold over the near-term. Yet, the greatest risk posed to the Aussie is not from a shift in RBA policy expectations and a waning of its interest rate advantage, but rather the looming return of general market volatility.

“A persistent surge in expectations for large swings amongst the major currencies would make the Aussie’s relatively small yield advantage a much less attractive (and riskier) proposition. This may open the door to a mass exodus from carry trades that had built on anticipation of a sustained lull in market activity. Long positioning among speculators is at its highest since April 2013 according to futures data, which suggests that once the floodgates open, they may be difficult to close.

“It will be difficult for the Aussie to recover back above the US92¢ level, which is significant from a technical standpoint.”

Commodities

In China in August, Craig James, chief economist at CommSec, notes that pig iron production was up 0.2 per cent on a year ago with thermal power capacity down 11.3 per cent; computer equipment down 8.5 per cent; mobile phones down 2.3 per cent; flat glass down 3.8 per cent. But power generating equipment was up 26.3 per cent. Also of note steel was up 2.4 per cent, oil production rose 4.4 per cent and autos were up 3.1 per cent.

United States

US stocks have finished mixed as the tech-rich Nasdaq dropped more than one per cent following a cautious report on Tesla Motors.

At the close, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 56.31 points (1.23 per cent) to 17,031.14.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 36.38 (0.21 per cent) to 17,031.14, while the broad-based S&P 500 dipped 1.41 (0.07 per cent) to 1,984.13.

Europe

European shares slipped on Monday, with stocks trading in a narrow range before Scotland votes on independence and the Federal Reserve holds its latest policy meeting, both events that are due later this week. London’s FTSE 100 index slipped 0.04 per cent to 6804.21 points. In Paris, the CAC 40 has shed 0.29 per cent to 4428.63 points, while Frankfurt’s DAX index edged up 0.09 per cent to 9659.63 points.

In Scotland, the latest round of polls showed Thursday’s vote on independence still too close to call. One poll showed the “No” vote 8 points in front, another showed the same lead for the Yes camp and two others gave a 51-49 percent and 53-47 percent split in favour of sticking with the union. ING Investment Management, which has $242 billion in assets under management, is ‘underweight’ UK stocks relative to global equities, heading into the referendum. “We intend to remain as such at least until the results of the vote are definite,” Patrick Moonen, senior strategist at ING IM, said. “Overall, we have reduced our allocation in real estate and equities. This is not only related to the Scottish referendum but also to monetary policy uncertainty, with the FOMC meeting this week.”

What happened yesterday

On Monday, the Australian share market suffered its largest one day fall in five weeks due to weaker than expected economic data from China.

At the close on Monday, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was down 57.6 points, or 1.04 per cent, at 5,473.5, while the broader All Ordinaries index was down 56.9 points, or 1.03 per cent, at 5,475.4.