• U.S. economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter as previously reported, with robust consumer spending offset by downward revisions to business and government investment.
Gross domestic product rose at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the final three months of 2016, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday in its second estimate for the period. That matched the estimate published last month.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected fourth-quarter GDP would be revised up to a 2.1 percent rate.
The economy grew 1.6 percent for all of 2016, its worst performance since 2011, after expanding 2.6 percent in 2015.
• Brexit minister David Davis said he did not expect Britain to have to pay 50 billion pounds ($62 billion) to the European Union as part of the Brexit process and said the era of huge sums being paid to Brussels was coming to an end.
• China's economy is likely to grow by 6.8 percent year on year in the first quarter of the year as production activities and investment picked up, according to a Chinese government think tank report Wednesday.
Consumer prices will rise by 1.4 percent in the first three months of this year, according to NAES, which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
NAES estimated that China's economy would expand by 6.7 percent in the first half of the year as industrial production was likely to increase moderately in the second quarter, while investment would see slightly slower growth.
• Oil prices rose on Thursday, extending two days of increases as supply disruptions in Libya lifted the market, although bloated U.S. crude inventories curbed gains.
Prices for front-month Brent crude futures LCOc1, the international benchmark for oil, were at $52.53 per barrel at 0659 GMT, up 11 cents from their last close.
In the United States, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 rose 17 cents to $49.67 a barrel.
• The U.S. last week sent more than 1 million barrels a day of crude out of the country, the third biggest export week ever, and double the average amount exported in 2016. It is also the third time this year that U.S. exports exceeded a million barrels a day, an industry record.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC, China.org
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