All three major stock indices (^DJI, ^GSPC, ^IXIC) are in the green today, though not by very much, as the summer market doldrums continues.
Here are some of the other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today.
Wage growth and the Fed
U.S. employment costs rose at the slowest pace in over three decades. The employment-cost index, which is a broad measure of worker wages, edged up a mere 0.2 percent in the second quarter. Could data like this delay a rate hike from the Federal Reserve?
U.S. banks on top globally
U.S. banks are giving their European counterparts a run for their money... Over the past five years shares of major U.S. banks have climbed on average 45%, while major European banks, including Barclays (BCS) and Deutsche Bank (DB), have seen their shares drop by 17%.
California drought update
The month of June was a good one for the state of California - or so it would seem. After the state's governor, Jerry Brown, asked residents to curb their water usage by 25% due to the crippling drought, Californians responded in turn and cut usage by 27%. But it may not have done that much good. The biggest water users - the pivotal agriculture business - are not counted in those numbers.
Tesla's driver-less car?
Self driving car fascination continues to grow with names like Google (GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL) dabbling with technology that would render humans useless inside their cars. But Elon Musk may be ahead of everyone. In two tweets this morning he suggests Tesla (TSLA) is getting close to releasing a software update that would make those cares a lot more autonomous, including autosteering on the highway and automated parallel parking.
