Investors took a cautious stance in Europe even as weak US inflation data released on Tuesday largely eliminated any bets that Fed officials would accept a rate hike later in the day.
Analysts say markets are almost entirely confident there will be a temporary pause in the interest rate hike cycle for the U.S. central bank, but there is uncertainty about the language that will be used to guide expectations about the future development of interest decisions. , in addition to new quarterly economic expectations.
Policymakers could signal that further interest rate hikes are on the cards, after assessing how the economy is handling the more than 500 basis points of combined increases already announced.
And on the CME FedWatch Index, markets expect 95.3% the Fed to hold interest rates at its meeting today, while markets expect 63.1 % expect the Fed to raise interest rates by 25 basis points at its next meeting.
Back in Europe, Britain’s economy grew 0.2% on a monthly basis in April, an improvement from a 0.3% decline the previous month, but industrial production fell 0.3% during the same period.
“Looking ahead, we continue to expect second quarter GDP as a whole to be unchanged from the first quarter,” said Samuel Toombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon, an economic consultancy.
There is also eurozone industrial production data for April, which will be released a day before the European Central Bank meets to take its final monetary policy decision and is expected to raise interest rates by 25 basis points. additional basis for controlling runaway inflation.
In corporate news, energy company Shell announced plans to sharply increase shareholder returns, including raising its dividend by 15% and increasing the rate of its share buyback program from the second quarter to 5 billion dollars against 4 billion dollars in the previous quarters.
Shares of Entin, owner of British betting company Ladbrokes, fell 10% to the bottom of the Stoxx 600 index, after announcing on Tuesday that it would buy sports betting company STS Holdings for 750 million pounds ( $946 million),
Market movements
Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.34% to 464.92 points as of 0835 GMT, while the index for the travel and leisure sector fell 0.9%.
The DAX index in Germany rose 0.42%, the CAC40 index in France rose 0.53%, while the FTSE100 index in the UK rose 0.10%.
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