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· The dollar inched lower against the yen on Thursday as lingering doubts about when the United States and China will sign a preliminary trade deal discouraged traders from taking big positions.

Sterling traded near a one-week low before a Bank of England meeting later on Thursday. No change in policy is expected, but investors are focused on how the BoE will respond to uncertainties posed by Britain’s fraught exit from the European Union.

· Traders are also awaiting results of a general election on Dec. 12, which will determine whether the ruling Conservative Party can capture a majority in Parliament and conclude Brexit by the Jan. 31 deadline.

Many investors remain nervous about the risks to the global outlook given the China-U.S. trade war and Brexit show no signs of a quick resolution.

The dollar fell 0.17% on Thursday to 108.80 yen.

· The United States and China have imposed tariffs on each other’s goods in a 16-month long trade war that rippled across financial markets, slowed global investments and growth.

Investors hope a preliminary trade agreement rolls back at least some of the tariffs, but negotiations between Washington and Beijing have been fractious, making an agreement far from certain.

In the onshore market, the yuan fell to 7.0124 per dollar, extending its pull back from a 2-1/2 month high of 6.9880 per dollar reached on Tuesday as optimism about a near-term resolution to trade frictions wanes.

The dollar index against a basket of six major currencies was steady at 97.962.

The pound traded a $1.2851, close to the lowest since Oct. 29.

The euro was quoted at $1.1065, little changed on the day following a mild 0.07% decline on Wednesday.

· The dollar’s persistent and confounding strength will continue well into next year, and even if a partial U.S.-China trade deal is signed it will at most knock the currency by 1-2% in the immediate aftermath, a Reuters poll found.

Nearly two-thirds of 56 analysts who answered an additional question said the dollar’s dominance would run for at least another six months, and a quarter expected the currency to remain strong for more than two years.

Over 40% of 63 analysts said the dollar index would weaken around 1-2% in the immediate aftermath, if a “phase one” trade agreement is signed by the United States and China. Only five respondents predicted a more than 2% loss.

What has probably helped the world’s reserve currency - and continues to do so - is a U.S. economy that has mostly performed better than its peers and given investors good returns from dollar-denominated assets.

· China and the United States must simultaneously cancel some existing tariffs on each other’s goods for both sides to reach a “phase one” trade deal, the Chinese commerce ministry said on Thursday.

· The United States is considering hosting an APEC summit in the country in January after Chile pulled out, Malaysia’s foreign minister said on Thursday citing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Chile canceled the Nov. 16-17 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit because of violent protests. Malaysia is the host of the next APEC summit scheduled for end-2020.

· Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Thursday that the central bank would continue with massive monetary easing to achieve its 2% inflation goal while adding “it’s taking time” to hit the target.

Finance Minister Taro Aso said it’s natural that monetary and fiscal policy should work as one to pull Japan out of deflation completely.

· The central bank of the world’s fifth largest economy, the Bank of England, will announce its decision on interest rates Thursday. The central bank is largely expected to keep its benchmark rate at 0.75% so traders will be parsing the BOE’s comments on inflation and Brexit for clues about future policy.

· Three U.S. diplomats who expressed alarm about President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine will serve as star witnesses when Democrats bring their impeachment case against Trump directly to the public with televised congressional hearings next week, lawmakers said on Wednesday.

· Democrats announced on Wednesday that the first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump will begin on November 13.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the hearings will begin with Bill Taylor, the most senior American envoy in Ukraine, and George Kent, a key State Department aide. And Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine who Trump ousted, will testify publicly on Friday, November 15.

· Central banks have been giving cheap money to investors who have been injecting it into companies that are often unprofitable and don’t contribute to economic growth, says billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio.

“The system of making capitalism work well for most people is broken,” he wrote.

The founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, recently put up a LinkedIn post titled: “The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken.” In addition to enormous amounts of cash flowing to investors at ultra-low rates, Dalio also attacked the nation’s ballooning debt and disproportionate access to credit, which is fueling the wealth gap.

· China, the United States, Japan and Korea will account for more than half of the world’s subscribers to super-fast 5G mobile networks by 2025, leaving Europe lagging, a study showed on Thursday.

Europe, moving more slowly to build 5G networks, will lag in terms of consumer take-up. Yet the picture looks different in business, where 5G will be able to run ‘smart’ factories using connected robots, devices and sensors.

“It’s going to be a small cluster of countries that leads adoption in 5G, with the rest of the world following,” Tim Hatt, head of research at GSMA Intelligence, told Reuters.

· Chinese tech giant Tencent operates WeChat Pay’s QR code payment systems, while Alibaba affiliate Ant Financial runs Alipay’s platform. Previously, users could not use the two digital payment platforms if they did not have a Chinese bank account

But On Tuesday, Ant Financial announced it is launching a version of the Alipay app that will support international debit or credit cards. After downloading Alipay on Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS, users can register for the international version of the app using their foreign mobile number.

· Beijing could resort to military conflict with self-ruled Taiwan to divert domestic pressure if a slowdown in the world’s second largest economy amid trade war threatens the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, the island’s foreign minister has said.

As Taiwan’s presidential elections approach in January, China has stepped up a campaign to “reunify” with what it considers a wayward province, wooing away the island’s few diplomatic allies and flying regular bomber patrols around it.

In an interview with Reuters, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu drew attention to China’s slowing economy amid its bitter trade war with the United States.

“If the internal stability is a very serious issue, or economic slowdown has become a very serious issue for the top leaders to deal with, that is the occasion that we need to be very careful,” Wu said on Wednesday.

· Oil prices rose on Thursday amid new hints from China on progress towards a trade deal with the United States, offsetting downward pressure from a huge increase in U.S. crude stockpiles.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 33 cents, or 0.5% at $62.07 a barrel by 0812 GMT after settling down $1.22 per barrel, or almost 2% on Wednesday.

West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 futures rose 37 cents, or 0.7%, from their last close to $56.72 a barrel. They settled 88 cents lower, or 1.54%, in the previous session.

China’s commerce ministry said on Thursday that while Beijing and Washington still have to agree to simultaneously cancel some existing tariffs on each other’s goods for both sides to reach a ‘Phase One’ trade deal, they have agreed to cancel additional tariffs in different phases.