1 Members of the Federal Open Market Committee are unlikely to have raised interest rates at a meeting that ended early this morning. But investors will be searching for clues to whether there will be a hike in either September or December.

2 Investor confidence has fallen across the globe this month. State Street Global Exchange's Investor Confidence Index shows the score falling from 127.1 to 114.6, the largest slide since the global financial crisis in 2009.

3 Property group Ho Bee Land has bought a freehold office block from British Land for £144 million (S$308 million). The 10-storey building at 39 Victoria Street, London, is 98,000 sq ft in size, including retail space on the ground floor.

4 Blumont, one of the firms caught up in the penny stock rout in late 2013, expects to report net losses for the second quarter ended June 30. The losses are due to fair-value adjustments of its securities, which were affected by the recent market volatility.

5 The latest to debut on the Singapore Exchange, retailer Choo Chiang, saw its shares open yesterday at 37 cents, above the initial public offering price of 35 cents. The shares closed at 37 cents, a premium of 5.7 per cent. About 7.7 million shares were traded.