The Federal Reserve says it will leave interest rates unchanged until it sees whether the economy stabilizes as the stimulative effect of 2017 tax cuts fades. Chairman Jerome Powell says the central bank expects a modest economic slowdown, "with overall conditions remaining favorable."

UK Prime Minister Theresa May says "political games" played by Parliament have forced her to request a three-month delay of Brexit. She has suggested she would rather resign than request a longer postponement, and some members of her party say she should step down immediately.

Even if the US and China reach a trade agreement, US tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese products will not be lifted immediately, President Donald Trump says. The tariffs could remain "for a substantial period of time," he says.

Most Asian-Pacific stock markets gained Thursday after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady and indicated increases were unlikely this year. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.9%; Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was flat; China's Shanghai Composite gained 0.4%; South Korea's Kospi added 0.4%; and markets in Japan and India were closed for a holiday.

An initial public offering for Levi Strauss has priced at $17 a share, above a suggested range of $14 to $16, valuing the company at $6.6 billion. The IPO raised $623.3 million.

Lion Air, Indonesia's largest private airline, has begun working with advisers on a $1 billion initial public offering that could come to the domestic market this year, sources said. The company had expressed interest in going public.

Morgan Stanley had the most commodity revenue among the 12 largest investment banks during 2018, followed by JPMorgan Chase, with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs sharing third place, according to Coalition data. Revenue from commodity trading, derivatives sales and other activities at all 12 banks increased 45% compared with 2017, reaching $3.6 billion.

An EY tracker indicates the UK financial sector is moving £1 trillion in assets to the EU to prepare for Brexit, up from a January estimate of £800 billion. "Continued uncertainty will undoubtedly lead to more assets and people being transferred from the UK and not necessarily to the EU," says Omar Ali, UK financial-services leader at EY.

The FBI has joined the US Justice Department and the Transportation Department's inspector general as they conduct a criminal investigation into the Federal Aviation Authority's certification of the Boeing 737 Max, sources said.

A concern of UK financial firms is the possibility that a no-deal Brexit forces assets to shift to venues with less liquidity from markets where they trade. The problem is avoidable if the UK and the EU deem each other's trading venues equivalent, but that hasn't happened.

The Alternative Reference Rates Committee, a Federal Reserve-backed advisory panel, says it wants to see by June a computer model for mortgages that incorporates an alternative interest-rate benchmark to replace Libor. Daniel Coates, a Federal Housing Finance Agency official and a panel member, says that is "a really aggressive deadline."

A Basel Committee on Banking Supervision survey of 189 banks finds all of them are progressing toward compliance with capital and liquidity rules under Basel III.

The European Central Bank is withdrawing a request to gain more power over regulation of euro-denominated derivatives, saying the EU and national governments have distorted the proposal.

European exchanges are lobbying EU officials to change rules governing access to the $1.5 trillion-a-day market for exchange-traded derivatives. Markus Ferber, one of the lawmakers behind the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, is urging the European Commission to "check very carefully if the 'open access' provisions will indeed work as intended" after Brexit.

Hoya Capital Real Estate has brought to NYSE Arca an exchange-traded fund offering broad exposure to the US housing sector. The Hoya Capital Housing ETF is linked to the Hoya Capital Housing 100 Index.

The Legal Entity Identifier Regulatory Oversight Committee in Basel, Switzerland, was incorrectly identified in a summary Wednesday. SmartBrief regrets the error.