• The dollar pulled away from 4-1/2-month lows against a currency basket on Wednesday after solid data backed expectations for more U.S. interest rate hikes this year, while sterling was knocked by Britain triggering its exit from the European Union.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against six major rival currencies, rose to 99.911, up 0.2 percent. It managed to crawl off a low of 98.858 hit earlier this week, its weakest level since Nov. 11, in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump's failed healthcare reform bill.
• Prime Minister Theresa May will file formal Brexit divorce papers on Wednesday, pitching the United Kingdom into the unknown and triggering years of uncertain negotiations that will test the endurance of the European Union.
May has promised to seek the greatest possible access to European markets but said Britain will aim to establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose limits on immigration from the continent.
For the most part, traders believe the markets have long been prepared for the start of the process, which comes with May triggering Article 50, the legal framework starting the negotiations that will unwind the decades-long relationship. But regardless, they will be watching the U.K. markets and the pound and euro closer than usual.
Brexit could be anticlimactic but it will still get attention well into the U.S. trading day. "I'll be watching Brexit but I don't think it's going to have much effect. I think the negotiations will be going on for two years," said Andrew Brenner, global head of emerging market fixed income at National Alliance.
• French former Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Wednesday he would vote for Emmanuel Macron in the coming presidential election, the biggest Socialist party name to date to turn his back on its official candidate and back the centrist instead.
Valls, a Socialist himself, said the election was wide-open and he would do all he could to ensure that far-right leader Marine Le Pen, second-placed in opinion polls did not win power.
• U.S. President Donald Trump told a group of senators on Tuesday that he expected lawmakers would be able to reach a deal on healthcare, without offering specifics on how they would do it or what had changed since a healthcare reform bill was pulled last week for insufficient support.
• Activity in China's vast manufacturing sector likely grew for an eighth straight month in March as a surprise rebound in the property market added to a construction boom, boosting sales of building materials from steel to cement, a Reuters poll showed.
The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) is expected to stay at 51.6 in March, the same as in February which was the second-highest reading since July 2014, according to a median forecast of 31 economists in a Reuters poll.
• Oil prices on Wednesday extended gains from the previous session, lifted by supply disruptions in Libya and expectations that an OPEC-led output reduction will be extended into the second half of the year.
Front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, rose 29 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $51.62 per barrel by 0653 GMT.
In the United States, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 34 cents, or 0.7 percent, at $48.71 a barrel.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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