· The euro fell on Wednesday, pulling back from a three-year high above $1.23 as some European Central Bank officials voiced worries about the currency’s strength.
At 3:12 p.m. (2012 GMT), the index that tracks the dollar against a basket of currencies was up 0.26 percent at 90.629. It hit a three-year low of 90.113 earlier.
The euro was down 0.29 percent at $1.2223 after hitting a three-year peak versus the greenback at $1.2322.
· The White House on Wednesday threw its support behind a Republican proposal to avert a government shutdown at week’s end with a one-month extension in funding, but it was unclear whether there were enough votes to pass it in Congress.
· White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said on Wednesday he believed Congress would pass a stopgap bill to keep the U.S. government funded ahead of a Friday deadline.
Kelly made the comment during an interview with Fox News, after Republican leaders in Congress proposed a stopgap bill that would fund the U.S. government through Feb. 16 and avert a shutdown, dealing a blow to Democrats who want such a measure to include immigration protections.
· President Donald Trump denied on Wednesday that the planned relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would take place within a year, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected the controversial move to happen by then.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month the embassy move was “probably no earlier than three years out, and that’s pretty ambitious,” a timeframe that administration officials have attributed to the logistics of finding and securing a site as well as arranging housing for diplomats.
· The U.S. economy and inflation expanded at a modest-to-moderate pace from late November through the end of2017, while wages continued to push higher, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday.
Several regional Fed districts noted increases in manufacturing, construction, and transportation input costs, according to the report. Some reported expectations of further wage increases in the coming months, though prices pressures were still mixed, the Fed said.
· Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said on Wednesday that her assumption the U.S. federal tax overhaul would add 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points in growth over the next two years might be too low.
· Britain and France will agree on Thursday to deepen security cooperation, a move which Prime Minister Theresa May hopes will win her goodwill in talks on leaving the European Union.
But in talks at Sandhurst, Britain’s army officer training academy, she will be under pressure from Macron to accept more asylum seekers and to pay more for border security on the French side of the Channel.
· The leader of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) cited progress on Wednesday in efforts to win support for formal talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives, and some colleagues said rejecting a coalition would dent party ratings.
· China and Japan, the two biggest foreign U.S. creditors, reduced their holdings of U.S. government debt in November when the dollar weakened against the two countries’ currencies, data from the U.S. Treasury Department released on Wednesday showed.
China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries fell to $1.176 trillion in November, its lowest in four months. The largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt owned $1.189 trillion in October, according to the Treasury’s latest capital flows data.
Japan, the second largest holder of Treasuries, scaled back its stake in U.S. government debt for a third straight month to $1.084 trillion. This was the lowest level since $1.083 trillion in June 2013.
· Oil prices ended higher on Wednesday ahead of the release of U.S. government data that was expected to show a ninth straight weekly drawdown in crude inventories.
Brent futures LCOc1 settled 23 cents higher at $69.38 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 gained 24 cents to $63.97 per barrel.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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