- Currencies traded in narrow ranges overnight, with certain risk-on crosses giving up some of their gains from yesterday ahead of the European open.
- Stocks: Nikkei -0.09 %, Hang Seng -0.03 %, Shanghai Composite +1.00 %, Dow Jones -0.18 %, S+P500 -0.57 %
- Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who leads the group of euro-area finance ministers, said that the International Monetary Fund and its head, Christine Lagarde, aren't pushing for the European Central Bank to take losses on Greek debt and that even if the ECB were to take any losses they would be small.
- A Greek default would have contagion effects and must be avoided at all costs, Jean-Claude Juncker told France's Le Figaro in an interview. Juncker told the newspaper that Greece must avoid doing anything that would endanger financial help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Europe has reached a period of calm in the debt crisis, but still lacks a common growth strategy, Juncker said in the interview.
- Officials negotiating a Greek debt deal in Athens Thursday said "some progress was realized," but discussions would continue Friday. Talks "focused on legal and technical issues on the voluntary (private sector involvement)," officials from the Institute of International Finance said in an emailed statement.
- Portugal is fighting a losing battle to contain its public debt and may be forced to impose haircuts of up to 50pc on private creditors, according to a top German institute. A report for the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said Portugal would have to run a primary budget surplus of over 11pc of GDP a year to prevent debt dynamics spiralling out of control even in a benign scenario of 2pc annual growth. (Telegraph)
- Fed Lacker said interest rates may need to rise before late 2014 to prevent a rise in inflation. "I do not believe economic conditions are likely to warrant an exceptionally low federal funds rate for so long," Lacker said in a statement on the Richmond Fed's website explaining his dissent from the central bank's Jan. 25 decision to pledge keeping its benchmark interest rate near zero "at least through late 2014."
