Schmid said the Fed will face challenges as its next meeting approaches.

EIA: U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve inventories fell 3.7 mln barrels in the week to Aug 21; prior -5.268 mln barrels.

Three people close to the Kremlin said Russia, having judged peace talks to be at a dead end, is preparing to escalate military strikes on Ukraine. Moscow is considering stepped-up heavy conventional ballistic-missile strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities’ infrastructure targets, the sources said. They added that Putin is unlikely to end the war in response to sanctions or Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries and logistics, and that Moscow increasingly views Ukrainian strikes as attacks by NATO states because of weapons and intelligence support. The sources said the current phase of hostilities has not yet reached the peak of military escalation.