• The dollar lost its grip on earlier gains against the yen on Wednesday, remaining under pressure after North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea ahead of a summit between U.S. and Chinese leaders.
The dollar edged down 0.1 percent to 110.64 yen, off from a session high of 110.92 and well below last Friday's 10-day peak of 112.19 yen.
The dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a trade-weighted basket of six peers, was slightly down on the day at 100.52, as slumping U.S. Treasury yields also gave investors little incentive to buy the greenback.
• Big for markets Wednesday could be ADP's payroll report at 8:15 a.m. ET, a warmup to the big government report due out Friday. The big question there is did cold, snowy weather in March muck with the payroll numbers, after a balmy February added a surprising 235,000 jobs. ADP is expected to show 187,000 jobs were created, and if it does show a weather impact, forecasts for the government jobs report Friday could come down.
Economists expect to see 180,000 nonfarm payrolls Friday, and an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, according to Thomson Reuters.
• The Institute for Supply Management releases its survey on the services, or nonmanufacturing, side of the economy. It is expected to come in at 57, compared to February's 57.6. A reading above 50 shows economic expansion, and that number should show an 87th month of growth and a lot of strength in the service sector. But markets are keeping an eye on the 10 a.m. ET report, just in case, and to see what it says about the underlying strength in the sector when it comes to orders, prices and jobs.
• The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point on March 15, and Fed officials have been very vocal since then about their intention on further rate hikes this year. So, traders are watching the Fed's minute meetings more to see if there's any news about what the Fed says about its $4.5 trillion balance sheet.
• The clock began running out this week on a strategy that has provided U.S. Republicans in Congress with their only notable legislative successes this year: aggressive use of an obscure U.S. law known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
Last Friday was the deadline for introducing any new CRA resolutions on regulations enacted by Obama's administration. Now Republicans must complete voting on resolutions already in the legislative pipeline by mid-May.
• Centrist Emmanuel Macron kept his position as favorite to win France's presidential election after a televised debate on Tuesday night in which he clashed sharply with his main rival, Marine Le Pen, over Europe, just 19 days before the election.
• More than half of the French electorate want a vote on whether France should be a member of the European Union but many more do not want to leave the euro, research from Citi showed Tuesday.
"Fifty-four percent favor holding a referendum on EU membership. However, 72 percent are opposed to exiting the euro to return to the franc," Citi said in its French 2017 elections: Who will gain momentum in the final stretch? report.
• Oil climbed to a near one-month high on Wednesday on signs of a gradual tightening in global oil inventories and on concerns about a supply outage at a field in the United Kingdom's North Sea that feeds into an international benchmark price.
Prices for Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, were at $54.46 per barrel at 0457 GMT, up 29 cents, or 0.5 percent, from their last close.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 33 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $51.35 a barrel.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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