Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] There hasn't been much up or down action at the index level in recent trading.

The Treasury Budget for August showed a deficit of $380.1 billion compared to a surplus of $89.3 billion in the same period a year ago. August has been a deficit month 69 times out of 70 fiscal yeas because there are no major tax due dates this month. The August deficit resulted from outlays ($687 billion) exceeding receipts ($307 billion). The Treasury Budget data is not seasonally adjusted so the August deficit cannot be compared to the July deficit.

The key takeaway from the report is that the U.S. government continues to run large budget deficits, which necessitates a large amount of Treasury issuance for government funding.

Separately, weekly EIA Natural Gas Inventories showed a build of 40 bcf versus 13 bcf. Natural gas futures are up 2.6% to $2.33/mmbtu.