1. Brexit trigger is coming

The U.K. is set to formally begin the two-year process of extracting itself from the European Union, a bloc of 28 nations with free trade and virtually open borders.

"Divorce" proceedings cannot begin until the British government formally informs the EU that it's triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. That's expected around 11:30 GMT Prime Minister Theresa May was photographed signing the Article 50 letter on Tuesday night.

The British pound has crashed following the Brexit referendum. It had been trading at $1.50 just before the referendum results came out; now it's at $1.24. It's been weakening a fair bit since Tuesday, and hasn't been helped by news that Scotland wants a new referendum on independence from the U.K.

Traders are nervous about Britain's prospects for securing a good Brexit deal with the EU. Business leaders are hoping to preserve as much free trade as possible to avoid the introduction of new tariffs and regulatory red tape.

2. Dollar continue to recover

The dollar gained more ground on Wednesday, pulling further away from the multi-month lows hit earlier in the week, while sterling slid lower as markets braced for Britain to trigger its exit from the European Union.

The greenback continued to move higher on Wednesday on the back of data out the previous session that showed U.S. consumer confidence at its highest level since December 2000.

The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, rose by 0.13% at 99.66 by 09:55 GMT. The index had sank to 98.67 on Monday, its lowest since November 11 in the wake of President Donald Trump’s failed healthcare overhaul bill.

Investors were also looking ahead to several appearances from Federal Reserve (Fed) officials throughout the day for any indications on the future path of monetary policy, including remarks from Chicago Fed president Charles Evans, Boston Fed chief Eric Rosengren and San Francisco Fed president John Williams later on Wednesday.

3. Global market overview

Global stock markets are mostly climbing Wednesday. U.S. stock futures are edging up.

European markets are mostly rising in early trading. The FTSE 100 index in London is inching higher, though it's not performing as well as other major European markets.

Asian markets ended the session with mixed results. All the Chinese indexes posted losses.

This comes after a positive Tuesday for the Dow Jones industrial average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq. Each index rose by 0.6% to 0.7%.

4. Oil rises, hits 1-week high

Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday, hitting a one-week high as investors looked ahead to weekly supply data from the U.S., while monitoring disruptions to Libyan crude production.

Optimism that an OPEC-led production cut deal will be extended through the end of the year further supported prices. U.S. crude oil futures gained 0.62% to $48.67 at 09:57 GMT while Brent oil traded up 0.66% to $51.76.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its official weekly oil inventories report at 14:30 GMT Wednesday. If the increase is confirmed, it would be the 12th weekly build in the past 14 weeks.

After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories rose by 1.9 million barrels in the week ended March 24, more than expectations for a build of just 300,000 barrels, although the report also showed a drop of 1.1 million barrels in gasoline stocks, while distillate stocks declined 2.0 million barrels.