• The dollar pulled back on Thursday after rising to one-month highs in the wake of upbeat U.S. economic data, with demand for the greenback cooling as Treasury yields came off their peaks.
The dollar also came off from a 2-1/2-week high of 114.95 JPY= marked on Wednesday against the yen, touching a low of 113.73. It was last down 0.3 percent at 113.84 yen.
U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields slipped to 2.484 percent US10YT=RR on Thursday, after climbing to a three-week high of 2.524 percent on Wednesday following the upbeat U.S. data.
• Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said low profitability at financial institutions could sow the seeds of a new financial crisis, offering his strongest warning to date of the demerits of aggressive monetary easing pursued by major central banks.
Mergers and consolidation may be among options for financial institutions to boost profitability, Kuroda said in an unusually frank call for bolder steps to deal with Japan's over-crowded regional banking sector.
• The Federal Reserve aims to raise U.S. interest rates in the months ahead as long as the economy continues to grow a bit above its trend and if, as expected, fiscal policies provide a boost, an influential Fed policymaker said on Wednesday.
The comments by New York Fed President William Dudley, a close ally of Fed Chair Janet Yellen, reinforced the central bank's cautious optimism that President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress would not derail plans for gradual rate hikes in the months and years ahead.
· The Bank of England (BoE) has revised its proposals for reforming how a benchmark for lending between banks is calculated, as part of its attempts to stamp out the manipulation of key reference points for financial contracts.
The BoE also said on Thursday it would push back implementing the changes to March or April 2018, rather than the end of this year, as previously stated.
• Oil held steady on Thursday, supported by ongoing supply cuts led by producer group OPEC, while rising fuel inventories and crude production in the United States dragged on prices.
Brent crude futures were trading at $55.74 per barrel at 0550 GMT (12:50 a.m. ET), down just 1 cent from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures dropped 6 cents to $53.05 per barrel.
Reference: Reuters
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