• The dollar and U.S. bond yields rose on Thursday after President Donald Trump proposed the biggest U.S. tax overhaul in three decades and as strong U.S. economic data supported the case for a Federal Reserve rate hike later this year.
The dollar shot up to a 2-1/2-month high of 113.26 yen JPY= the previous day before stepping back to 113.08 yen Thursday.
• The United States will see its gross domestic product rise by 1 percent if the government can get tax reform "right," according to the commerce secretary.
Getting U.S. tax reform right is important, because it could add nearly $3 trillion in federal government revenue in the next decade, Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday.
• British officials are in talks with Peru, Colombia and Ecuador to use the three countries’ existing trade agreement with the European Union as the basis for forming new deals after Brexit, the British embassy in Lima said on Wednesday.
• South Korea expects North Korea to engage in more provocative action next month to coincide with the anniversary of the founding of its communist party and China’s all-important Communist Party Congress.
In a meeting with President Moon Jae-in on Thursday, national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said he expected Pyongyang to act around Oct. 10 and 18, but gave no details.
• The European Central Bank should fight high and low inflation with equal vigor, Finnish central bank chief Erkki Liikanen said on Thursday, suggesting he had little tolerance for any eventual inflation overshoot.
“The ECB’s policy target is symmetrical,” Liikanen, who sits on the ECB’s rate setting Governing Council, said in prepared remarks for a news conference. “It is of equal importance to act effectively on inflation levels that are above or below the price stability objective.”
• China’s factories likely cranked up activity for the 14th straight month in September as the country’s year-long building boom and higher prices generate hearty profits, though the pace of growth may have eased slightly from August.
• A fledgling conservative party led by popular Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is gaining traction in its challenge to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc ahead of a general election next month, media polls released on Thursday showed.
A survey by the Mainichi newspaper showed 18 percent of voters plan to vote for Koike’s Party of Hope compared to 29 percent for Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
• Oil prices fell on Thursday, with U.S. crude giving up some of the previous session’s gains that were driven by a surprise fall in inventories, while Brent moved further away from recent 26-month highs.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) CLc1 dipped 22 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $51.92 a barrel by 0646 GMT after rising 26cents in the previous session to just below a five-month high.
Brent LCOc1 was down 41 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $57.49 a barrel, slipping further away from Tuesday’s more than two-year high of $59.49 following a near 1 percent fall in the previous session.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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