European Stock Futures Lower; Fed Minutes Seen Key
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are seen opening sharply lower Wednesday, following the late selloff on Wall Street overnight amid uncertainties over inflation and future Federal Reserve policy.
At 2:05 AM ET (0705 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.2% lower, CAC 40 futures in France dropped 1.2% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.9%.
The major indices on Wall Street failed to hold onto early gains on the back of strong retail earnings Tuesday, suffering a sharp selloff into the close. All the major tech stocks ended in the red as investors feared holding these growth companies into the release of the minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting.
Stocks have been pressured of late on concerns that growing inflationary pressures could force the U.S. central bank to rein in its ultra-easy monetary policies.
With this in mind, investors will study the minutes of the April Fed meeting, when they are released later Wednesday, for clues of when the central bank could consider cutting back its bond purchases, a move likely to precede increases in interest rates.
Ahead of that, U.K. consumer prices rose 0.6% on the month in April and 1.5% on the year, a sharp rise from the 0.3% and 0.7% respective figures seen the previous month.
In corporate news, Julius Baer (SIX:BAER) will be in focus after the Swiss wealth manager said it was on track to deliver on financial targets as it posted an 8% rise in assets under management for the first four months of 2021.
Other companies set for the spotlight include E.ON (DE:EONGn), Deutsche Boerse (DE:DB1Gn), Experian (OTC:EXPGF) and Premier Foods (LON:PFD), as they publish their latest results.
Oil prices weakened Wednesday as investors digested the prospects of more supply entering the market following reports of progress in the talks between the United States and Iran to revive a deal limiting the Persian Gulf country’s nuclear program, which could lead to a lifting of sanctions on its crude exports.
Additionally, data from the American Petroleum Institute showed that U.S. crude inventories rose by 620,000 barrels last week. If confirmed by U.S. government data later in the session, that would be the first weekly increase in three weeks.
U.S. crude futures traded 1.1% lower at $64.78 a barrel, while the Brent contract fell 1.1% to $67.98.
Additionally, gold futures rose 0.3% to $1,874.10/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.2% higher at 1.2240.
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European Stock Futures Lower; Fed Minutes Seen Key