The U.K. pound traded near a two-month high Monday as Prime Minister Theresa May made her final plea to lawmakers to support her proposed plan to leave the European Union despite near certainty that it will be voted down in parliament later this week.

U.S. consumer prices slide 0.1% in December, dropping for the first time in nine months as gasoline prices decline. Excluding volatile food and energy items, prices rise 2.2% over the past 12 months, a moderate pace that could ease pressure on the Federal Reserve to maintain its three-year-long campaign to boost interest rates.

If the Fed pauses in March, that decision came after the December meeting.

The Federal Reserve released minutes from the monetary policy committee's meeting last month.

U.S. small-business owners reported a big drop in December in their plans for spending on things like new equipment, locations and technology, reflecting an increasingly sober economic outlook following last year's stock-market decline.

The United States could lose it triple-A credit rating if the current government shutdown triggers another debt ceiling breach, Fitch Ratings cautioned Wednesday, as the country runs a record deficit and pushes overall borrowing past $22 trillion.

Germany's powerful manufacturing sector, the engine room of the European economy, tipped closer to recession Tuesday after a much weaker-than-expected reading of industrial output for the month of November.

For the first time in years we don't have to sacrifice quality to maintain income.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he wouldn't resign if asked to depart by President Donald Trump, who has criticized the central bank for raising U.S. interest rates too quickly.

China's central bank said Friday that it will reduce the ratio of cash to loans that domestic lenders need to hold on their balance sheets, a move that will add around $220 billion to the nation's financial system as officials attempt to re-ignite growth in the world's second-largest economy.