a look at the day ahead in us and global markets by harry robertson its been a tough little patch for us stocks with the benchmark sp 500 index spx falling for five of the last six sessions it dropped 23 last week its biggest weekly fall since the banking turmoil of march things look a little brighter this morning with us stock futures up slightly and european equities stoxx rising in the morning session it seems theres only so much bad chinese news traders can pay attention to data out today showed the economy fell into deflation in july with prices dropping 03 yearonyear on tuesday figures showed chinese imports dropped 124 in july yearonyear while exports contracted 145 its been probably three or four months since weve started to realise actually chinas reopening is not this panacea for global growth that we might have hoped for says timothy graf head of macro strategy for emea at state street italys decision to water down the bank tax which shook markets on tuesday has helped restore some confidence particularly in europe the dollar index was giving back some of its recent gains as investors moved out of safehaven assets bond yields were little changed as of wednesday however the greenback was on track for its fourth straight weekly increase  hardly a bullish sign for global markets adding to the downbeat mood on tuesday was a report by moodys that cut the credit ratings of several small to midsized us banks the next big test is us inflation data for july due on thursday its expected to show a pickup in price growth to 33 yearonyear from 3 in june core inflation is expected to hold steady at 48 itll be a key input into the federal reserves rate decision in september markets currently think rates are likely to stay at 525 to 55 but they reckon theres a slim chance of another hike another key question for us markets says state streets graf is whether investors can keep the faith in the tech giants that have powered this years 17 rally in the sp 500 what does finally dent this and is it just something stupid like seasonal factors well unusually thats kind of whats playing out he says from july 31 into now you started to see some weakness in global equities and tech is going to be a huge part of that key developments that should provide more direction to us markets later on wednesday  walt disney company reports earnings  mba mortgage applications survey data