The ruble is tumbling

The Russian ruble is tumbling on Wednesday.

The petro-currency is down by 0.7% at 57.8029 per dollar as of 8:06 a.m. ET.

Earlier, data showed that retail sales fell by 2.3% year-over-year in January, better than forecasts of a 5.2% drop.

This was the "least bad" reading since December 2014 and follows the prior month's reading, which showed that retail sales fell by 5.9%.

However, unemployment rate ticked up to 5.6% in January, up from 5.3% in December.

As for the rest of the world, here's the scoreboard as of 8:11 a.m. ET:

• The US dollar index is up by 0.2% at 101.60 ahead of the Fed minutes. The Federal Open Market Committee's minutes from the January 31/February 1 meeting will be out at 2 p.m. ET. Traders will be on the lookout for any hints the Fed may give as to when the next interest-rate hike may occur. The market currently sees a 38% chance the next hike happens in May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
• The euro is down by 0.2% at 1.0513 against the dollar. Eurozone CPI came in at 1.8% year-over-year in January, in line with expectations. Meanwhile, the German Ifo Business Climate Index came in at 111.0 in February, following the prior month's reading of 109.9.
• The British pound is down by 0.2% at 1.2450 against the dollar after data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the UK economy grew by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2015.
• The Japanese yen is up by 0.6% at 113.02 per dollar.

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