• The euro on Thursday rose towards 2 1/2-year highs against the dollar seen earlier this month on bets that euro zone officials will embark on a gradual unwinding of their massive policy stimulus while U.S. policymakers looked increasingly wary.
The single currency was trading slightly higher at $1.1763 in early trades, nearing a 2-1/2 year high of $1.1910 hit earlier this month.
The U.S. dollar was also undermined by worries over U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to implement his economic policies after he disbanded two high-profile business advisory councils.
The dollar's index against a basket of six major currencies slipped to 93.50 from Wednesday's three-week high of 94.145.
• The United States drew a hard line for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday, demanding major concessions aimed at slashing trade deficits with Mexico and Canada and boosting U.S. content for autos.
• At the start of talks in Washington, U.S. President Donald Trump's top trade adviser, Robert Lighthizer, said Trump was not interested in "a mere tweaking" of the 23-year-old pact, which Trump has threatened to scrap without major changes.
• Efforts by the United States government to loosen regulations on banks are "dangerous and extremely short-sighted", one of the U.S. central bank's top policymakers said in an interview with the Financial Times published late on Wednesday.
Vice chair of the Federal Reserve Stanley Fischer said that there are troubling signs of a drive to return to the status quo that preceded the 2008 financial crisis.
"I am worried that the US political system may be taking us in a direction that is very dangerous," Fischer said.
• The United States is in an economic war with China, U.S President Donald Trump's chief political strategist has said, warning Washington is losing the fight but is about to hit China hard over unfair trade practices.
"We're at economic war with China," Steve Bannon told U.S. news site prospect.org in an interview published in Wednesday.
• Residential building permits issued in Germany dropped 7 percent on the year in the first six months of 2017, data showed on Thursday, in a sign that a construction boom in Europe's biggest economy could soon peter out.
• More Britons tried to rein in their spending in the second quarter of this year than at any time since 2015 as rising inflation squeezed household incomes, according to a survey published on Thursday.
Some 53 percent of Britons scrimped between April and June - the highest proportion since 56 percent did so during the same period of 2015, market research firm Nielsen said.
This marked a swing back towards household cost-cutting over the course of the past year, which had been at its lowest level on record - 40 percent - in the two months after the Brexit vote in June 2016.
• A majority of businesses are yet to change their strategic planning due to Britain's decision to leave the European Union, a survey of chief financial officers by Thomson Reuters showed.
• North Korea would be "crossing a red line" if it put a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, South Korea's president said on Thursday, but the United States had promised to seek Seoul's approval before taking any military action.
• Oil prices edged up on Thursday, but the market continued to be weighed down by high production, especially in the United States.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were at $50.36 per barrel at 0657 GMT, up 9 cents, or 0.2 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were at $46.80 a barrel, up just 2 cents.
Reference: Reuters
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