外汇新闻

The South Korea stock market on Wednesday halted the two-day winning streak in which it had gathered just 7 points or 0.3 percent. The KOSPI now rests just shy of the 2,420-point plateau and it's got another negative lead for Thursday's trade.

The Bank of Korea will wrap up its monetary policy meeting and then announce its decision on interest rates, highlighting a busy day for Asia-Pacific economic activity. The BoK is expected to keep its benchmark lending rate steady at 3.50 percent.

Producer prices in South Korea were up 0.4 percent on month in January, the Bank of Korea said on Thursday - unchanged from the December reading.

After fluctuating earlier in the day, the value of the U.S. dollar has moved higher following the release of the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting.

The Swiss stock market shook off early weakness and inched higher on Wednesday, closing in the green for the fourth straight session and advancing more than 100 points or 1 percent in that span.

The major European stock markets opened in the red on Wednesday and remained under water throughout most of the session, finally finishing mixed and little changed. The early selling pressure came on lingering concerns about the Federal Reserve's rate hike path, which dented demand for riskier assets. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the minutes of its latest monetary policy meeting later today, which could shed additional light on the outlook for interest rates amid worries the Fed will raise rates higher than currently anticipated. Germany's DAX rose 2.27 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 15,399.89, while the FTSE in London sank 47.12 points or 0.59 percent to close at 7,930.63 and the CAC 40 in France eased 9.39 points or 0.13 percent to end at 7,299.26. In Germany, Fresenius Medical Care skyrocketed 7.32 percent, while Fresenius SE plummeted 4.37 percent, Deutsche Borse tumbled 2.78 percent, Deutsche Bank retreated 1.52 percent, Deutsche Telekom advanced 0.93 percent, Infineon Technology dropped 0.79 percent, Deutsche Post added 0.57 percent, Heidelberg Cement rose 0.47 percent and Volkswagen perked 0.09 percent. In London, Antofagasta plummeted 2.79 percent, while Rolls-Royce tumbled 2.15 percent, Rentokil Initial jumped 1.89 percent, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust declined 1.83 percent, Compass Group climbed 1.48 percent, Shell slumped 1.45 percent, Vodafone skidded 1.14 percent, Prudential sank 1.03 percent, Haleon lost 0.79 percent, Centrica fell 0.63 percent, British American Tobacco rose 0.46 percent and Tesco dipped 0.24 percent. In France, Danone surged 4.49 percent, while BNP Paribas tanked 2.20 percent, Credit Agricole surrendered 2.01 percent, Societe Generale retreated 1,94 percent, Carrefour slumped 1.21 percent, Engie weakened 1.14 percent, Orange advanced 0.87 percent, Sanofi added 0.78 percent, Veolia Environment lost 0.56 percent, Vivendi fell 0.49 percent and L'Oreal rose 0.10 percent. In economic news, Germany's consumer price inflation accelerated as initially estimated at the start of the year amid higher energy and food prices, official data showed Wednesday. The consumer price index climbed 8.7 percent year-over-year in January, faster than the downwardly revised 8.1 percent rise in December, final data from Destatis revealed. Italy's consumer price inflation eased more than expected in January, on lower energy and fresh food prices, but core price growth accelerated due to increase in prices across a broad range of goods and services, latest figures from the statistical office ISTAT showed Wednesday. The consumer price index rose 10.0 percent year-on-year following an 11.6 percent increase in December. Confidence among French manufacturers improved marginally for the third straight month in February, primarily due to an improvement in the assessment of the past production and the overall order book balance, survey results from the statistical office Insee showed on Wednesday. The manufacturing confidence index rose to 104 in February from 103 in the previous month.