European stocks may drift lower at open on Monday as investors await inflation data from the U.S. and China this week for clues on the outlook for global interest rates.
A trio of the top policymakers will give speeches, including Fed Vice Chair Clarida, Fed Chair Powell, and Fed Governor Bowman later today. Powell will issue more commentary on Tuesday.
Asian markets were mostly lower after Chinese trade data for October released over the weekend proved to be a mixed bag. While exports topped forecasts, a miss on imports added to evidence of a slowing in domestic demand.
Gold extended a rally to hit a two-month high as the dollar retreated after the congressional passage of a long-delayed U.S. $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Oil prices rose after Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil producer Aramco raised the official selling price for its crude.
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Saturday that his administration has ways to deal with high oil prices after the OPEC+ coalition rejected calls from the U.S. and other big oil consuming nations to increase output by more than planned in December.
However, he was noncommittal or ordering a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release.
EU’s Sentix investor confidence data will be out later in the day while ECB President Lagarde will participate at the Eurogroup meeting.
U.S. stocks pushed further into record highs on Friday as the latest jobs data surprised on the upside.
U.S. non-farm payroll employment surged up by 531,000 jobs in October while the unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent in September, hitting its lowest level since March of 2020, data showed.
The Dow gained 0.6 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.2 percent and the S&P 500 added 0.4 percent.
European markets ended Friday’s session higher as investors reacted to promising news on Pfizer’s Covid-19 pill and the upbeat U.S. jobs report.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index ended flat with a positive bias. The German DAX inched up 0.2 percent, France’s CAC 40 index climbed 0.8 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 0.3 percent.
Business News
European Shares Seen Lower At Open
2021-11-08 05:29:32
