By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are expected to open marginally higher Monday, at the start of a week that includes the release of key U.S. inflation and U.K. GDP data as well as more quarterly corporate earnings.
At 02:00 AM ET (0600 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.6% higher, CAC 40 futures in France climbed 0.1%, and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.4%.
European equities recorded gains this week, helped by largely positive corporate earnings. However, they closed lower on Friday after the much stronger-than-anticipated U.S. jobs report diluted hopes that the Federal Reserve may relent in its aggressive campaign to tame inflation, which is hitting activity in the world’s largest economy and biggest growth driver.
With this in mind, investors’ attention will be focused on Wednesday’s U.S. consumer price index, with economists expecting the annual rate of inflation to moderate to 8.7% in July from 9.1% in June, which was the largest increase since 1981.
Also of note will be the release of U.K. GDP for June as well as the second quarter on Friday, after the Bank of England warned last week that it expects the economy to enter a prolonged recession later this year.
In corporate news, Siemens Energy (ETR:ENR1n), which supplies equipment to the power industry, warned of a deeper than previously expected net loss in 2022, announcing a charge of around 200 million euros ($204 million) due to the restructuring of its business in Russia.
French utility company Veolia (EPA:VIE) confirmed a deal to sell Suez's U.K. waste business to Australia's Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) for around 2.4 billion euros ($2.4 billion).
Oil prices edged higher Monday, but remained near multi-month lows as recession fears weigh heavily on the demand outlook.
The latest data pointed to a slow recovery in China, the world's top crude importer, from the COVID-19 shutdown. The second-largest economy in the world imported 8.79 million barrels per day of crude in July, up from a four-year low in June, but still 9.5% lower than a year ago.
By 02:00 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.6% higher at $89.55 a barrel, after dropping just under 10% last week. The Brent contract rose 0.6% to $95.52, after a weekly loss of just under 14% last week, falling to their lowest levels since February.
Additionally, gold futures fell 0.1% to $1,789.85/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.1% higher at 1.0184.