• The dollar lost ground in Asian trading on Wednesday as investors awaited the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest meeting for clues as to the pace of interest rate hikes, while Europe's political woes kept a bruised euro under pressure.
The Fed minutes due to be released later on Wednesday could either reinforce or undermine recent hawkish comments from central bank policy makers.
The dollar was 0.2 percent lower at 113.45 yen, edging away from its peak of 114.955 yen touched a week ago, which was its highest since late January.
• Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Wednesday the chance the central bank will deepen negative interest rates is low for now, backing market expectations that no additional monetary easing is forthcoming in the near future.
Kuroda said Japan's economic growth was accelerating and keeping inflation on track to hit the BOJ's 2 percent target during the fiscal year ending in March 2019, in line with its latest quarterly forecasts made in November.
• Hong Kong handed out billions in tax cuts and poverty relief on Wednesday, to stimulate its economy that is expected to grow more strongly than expected at 2 to 3 percent this year despite headwinds from rising global trade protectionism
• Hong Kong expects its economy to expand 2 to 3 percent in 2017, the city's financial secretary Paul Chan said in his first budget speech on Wednesday, far more than a 1.3 percent expansion forecast by economists surveyed by Reuters.
• Goldman Sachs expects global crude oil inventories to keep falling due to production cuts and strong growth in demand, although stocks are likely to rise in the United States.
"We do not view the recent U.S. builds as derailing our forecast for a gradual draw in inventories, with in fact the rest of the world already showing signs of tightness," analysts at the bank said in a note dated Feb. 21.
• Oil prices held near multi-week highs on Wednesday after OPEC signaled optimism over its deal with other producers to curb output to clear a glut that has weighed on markets since 2014.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate April crude contract, the new front-month future, was up 17 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $54.50 a barrel at 0740 GMT. On Tuesday, the March contract expired up 1.2 percent after reaching its highest since Jan. 3.
Brent crude was up 17 cents, or 0.3 percent, at $56.83, having touched its highest since Feb. 2 at $57.31 in the previous session.
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