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·         The euro remained close to 2-1/2 week highs, getting a boost from Tuesday’s upbeat German economic data. The common currency edged down slightly to $1.1797 after jumping more than 1 percent in the previous session. It moved well away from a 3-1/2-month low of $1.1553 plumbed last week.

The euro’s ascent pushed down the dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a basket of six major rivals. It was steady on the day at 93.812, wallowing at its lowest levels since late October and well below its overnight high of 94.542.

·         Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Tuesday that one of the challenges for the central bank is how its multiple members communicate with the public.

"This really is one of the challenges of our system," Yellen told a European Central Bank panel in Frankfurt.

"We have a very large committee, 19 people," she said. "We've had a kind of democratization of monetary policy that began really under my predecessor."

Some members are traditionally more hawkish than others, and they could suggest with their speeches a stronger path to normalization of monetary policy, and vice-versa, creating potentially incorrect expectations for investors, who trade according to the path of monetary policy.

Yellen admitted that it is hard to find a solution to this problem.

"Probably we will never, given our structure and size, be able to deal with this totally effectively," Yellen told the audience.

·         "This is a work in progress," she added.

·         China’s state planner approved 16 fixed asset investment projects in October, according to a handout given at a briefing on Wednesday.

The National Development and Reform Commission said the investments were worth 66.6 billion yuan (7.64 billion pounds).

·         Japan’s economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter due to strong exports, posting the longest period of uninterrupted growth in more than a decade.

The economy expanded at a 1.4 percent annualised rate in July-September, slightly above the median estimate for annualised growth of 1.3 percent, Cabinet Office data showed on Wednesday.

That followed revised annualised growth of 2.6 percent in April-June.

Consumer spending fell for the first time in seven quarters but this is expected to be temporary because the economy is near full employment, which should bolster domestic consumption in the future. Rising capital expenditure and exports are also expected to keep the economy growing, which should ease some concerns about sluggish inflation.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.3 percent compared to the previous quarter, which matched the median estimate and followed a 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter expansion in April-June, Cabinet Office data showed on Wednesday.

·         The White House is considering Mohamed El-Erian for vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, a source confirmed to CNBC.

El-Erian, the chief economic advisor at Allianz, would bring a wealth of experience to the position, including his time at bond giant Pimco.

·         Congressional analysts are estimating that the Republican Senate tax bill would increase taxes in 2019 for some 13.8 million U.S. households earning less than $200,000 a year.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation provided the analysis Monday as the Senate's tax-writing committee begins work on its version of the tax overhaul bill. The legislation, promoted as a boon to the middle class, would steeply cut corporate taxes, double the standard deduction, and limit or repeal completely the federal deduction for state and local property and income taxes.

The analysis of the Senate plan says 13.8 million households, or about 10 percent of all taxpayers, would face a tax increase of $100 to $500 in 2019. There also would be increases greater than $500 for a number of taxpayers, especially those with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000. By 2025, 21.4 million households would have tax increases.