The UK market turned negative in afternoon trading Wednesday, as investor attention is centered on the policy meeting of the Federal Reserve, which is to be followed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's briefing. The Asian markets ended mixed while the U.S. index futures indicate a higher open.
Minutes of Bank of England's latest policy meeting showed that at the final meeting of Mervyn King as governor, six members overturned his call for additional stimulus. As seen in the prior four meetings, King, Paul Fisher and David Miles sought an increase in quantitative easing by 25 billion pounds, while other 6 members of the committee voted to retain it at 375 billion pounds.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index of eurozone bluechip stocks is adding 0.05 percent, while the Stoxx Europe 50 index, which includes some major U.K. companies, is falling 0.14 percent.
The UK market is currently losing around 0.1 percent.
United Utilities is declining 3.4 percent and Aggreko is falling 3.3 percent.
BAE Systems is gaining 2 percent and Tesco is adding 1.8 percent.
Rio Tinto is up 1.3 percent after reports of lay off in its West Australian iron ore business. Citigroup raised the stock to ''Most Favored Stock List.''
Berkeley, which reported higher annual profit, is gaining 3.6 percent.
Elsewhere in Europe, the German DAX, the French CAC 40 and Switzerland's SMI are in positive territory.
Across Asia/Pacific, markets had a mixed outing. Australia's All Ordinaries added around 1 percent and Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 1.8 percent. China's Shanghai Composite Index and Hong Kong's Hang Seng retreated 0.7 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
In the U.S., futures point to a higher open on Wall Street. In the previous session, major U.S. averages rose about a percent each as soft inflation data suggested the Federal Reserve would maintain a status quo on interest rates.
In the commodity space, crude for August delivery is adding $0.44 to $99.11 per barrel and August gold is rising $0.1 to $1367 a troy ounce.
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