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The Bank of Japan on Tuesday decided to retain its target of doubling the monetary base in two years, but stopped short of announcing any new steps to curb bond market volatility. Meanwhile, the central bank upgraded its view of the economy. The BoJ said its money market operations will continue to target an expansion of monetary base at an annual pace of JPY 60-70 trillion, as announced in April.

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The success of the bond-purchase program of the European Central Bank will have no impact on the ruling whether the measure was constitutional or not, the German Constitutional Court said on Tuesday. Germany's highest court in Karlsruhe is holding a two-day hearing to decide whether the ECB's bond buying program called the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) violates the German law.

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U.K. industrial production recoded moderate growth in April, contradicting market expectations for stagnation, as strong performance by the mining sector more than offset a contraction in the manufacturing sector.

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Wholesale inventories in the U.S. rose in line with economist estimates in the month of April, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday. The report said wholesale inventories edged up by 0.2 percent in April following a revised 0.3 percent increase in March. The modest growth matched economist estimates.

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Australian consumer confidence rebounded in June after sharp deterioration in the past two months as their view of family finances improved markedly, a survey by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute revealed Wednesday. Still, households remained downbeat about the prospects of the broader economy, the survey found. The headline consumer confidence index rose 4.7 percent to 102.2 in June.

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Core machine orders in Japan plunged a seasonally adjusted 8.8 percent on month in April to 723.3 billion yen, the Cabinet Office said on Wednesday - falling for just the second time in seven months.

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Portugal's EU measure of inflation accelerated more-than-expected in May, after slowing in the previous month.

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Iceland's central bank left its interest rates unchanged for the fifth time in June.

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Fitch Ratings raised India's credit rating outlook to 'stable' on Wednesday, signaling support to the government's structural reforms and efforts to trim the country's massive budget deficit. The upgrade will be most welcome to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government at a time when the rupee has weakened significantly and economic growth slowed to a decade-low in the fiscal year ended March 31.

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A bigger-than-expected decline in jobless claims as well as a fall in unemployment indicate that the U.K. economy is recovering as suggested by recent economic data. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits decreased by 8,600 in May from April, the Office for National Statistics reported Wednesday. It was sharper than the expected drop of 5,000.

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