• The dollar rebounded from a seven-week low on Thursday, still feeling the positive effects of a record-setting Dow Jones Industrial Average the day before, although gains were tempered by persistent uncertainty surrounding the new U.S. administration's economic policy plans.
In mid-afternoon trading, the dollar index was up 0.3 percent at 100.36, having hit a seven-week low of99.793 in Asian trading. The dollar gained 0.9 percent against the yen to 114.35 yen, while the euro fell 0.4percent versus the greenback to $1.0700.
• New U.S. single-family home sales fell to a 10-month low in December after three straight months of solid gains, but the housing market recovery remains intact as a tightening labor market boosts wage growth.
• While other data on Thursday showed a bigger-than-expected increase in the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week, the four-week moving average of claims dropped to levels last seen in1973.
• The White House on Thursday floated the idea of imposing a 20 percent tax on goods from Mexico to pay for a wall at the southern U.S. border, sending the peso plummeting and deepening a crisis between the two neighbors.
• U.S. President Donald Trump would favor Senate Republicans changing voting rules to allow a simple majority of the Senate to approve his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court if Democrats block his choice, he said in an interview airing on Thursday.
• President Donald Trump will seek quick progress toward a bilateral trade agreement with Japan in place of a broader Asia-Pacific deal he abandoned this week, when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits the White House next month, an official in the Trump administration said on Thursday.
• Joking that "opposites attract," Prime Minister Theresa May called on President Donald Trump on Thursday to renew the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States and lead in a new, changed world.
• Oil prices were driven 2 percent higher by an ongoing rally in the U.S. stock market on Thursday, although gains were capped by plentiful supplies and bulging inventories in spite of efforts by producers to cut output.
• Benchmark Brent crude was up $1.12 a barrel, or 2 percent, at $56.20 by 2:34 p.m. ET (1934 GMT), while U.S. light crude futures were up $1.03, or 2 percent, at $53.78.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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