The Traderszone Network

Squawk Box Live in Europe has all the news and updates ahead of the crucial Fed rate decision on Thursday.

Asian shares followed Wall Street higher on Wednesday, albeit in thin volume, and short-term U.S. bond yields held near 4 1/2-year highs as investors braced for the possibility of the first interest rate hike in the United States in almost a decade. Markets remain mixed on the likelihood of a rate increase by the Fed at its two-day meeting starting later in the day, and U.S. economic data published on Tuesday did little to either back, or douse, expectations of one.

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The latest cuts, on top of layoffs of 55,000 workers previously announced under Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman, notably will be in the company’s faster-growing corporate hardware and services operations, to be spun off as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, or HPE, on Nov. 1. The latest job cuts indicate a reduction of the company’s total workforce by at least 10 percent, based on the company’s most recent number of more than 300,000 employees as of Oct. 31, 2014, and reflecting the previously announced reduction of 55,000.

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Some U.S. chief executives think it is time to pick interest rates off the floor, even as many of their peers campaign to maintain the status quo. The Federal Reserve meets this week and the first rate rise in nearly a decade — albeit a small one — is on the table. Most businesses, including over 64 percent of those surveyed last week by the National Association of Manufacturers, think it is a bad idea.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Flexing its muscles amid a bitter congressional fight over the U.S. Export-Import Bank, General Electric Co (GE.N) on Tuesday revealed plans to shift up to 500 U.S. manufacturing jobs to Europe and China because it can no longer access EXIM financing. The largest U.S. industrial conglomerate said it will move production of some heavy duty gas turbines and 400 jobs to Belfort, France, in exchange for a credit line from France’s COFACE (COFA.PA) export agency. The deal will support GE bids for international power projects.

U.S. oil prices extended gains in Asia on Wednesday on an unexpected stockpile draw and higher gasoline prices, while international crude markets remained weak on the back of low growth expectations. The recent divergence in American and international markets has reduced the discount between U.S. and global crude benchmarks by almost two thirds during the past month to around $2.50 per barrel. U.S. crude futures rose after industry group the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a 3.1 million-barrel crude drawdown last week, versus analyst expectations for a build.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N) and the United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement for a new labor contract for the company’s 40,000 unionized workers in the United States, the union and the company said Tuesday evening. UAW President Dennis Williams and FCA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne scheduled a press conference in Detroit at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT) to discuss the agreement. The deal will now go to FCA unionized workers for ratification.