European Shares Set For Positive Start

European stocks are likely to open higher on Monday as investors await fresh cues from central bank meetings.

The Fed’s next meeting ends on Wednesday, with Chair Jerome Powell likely to repeat ECB President Lagarde’s message that talk of tapering is premature.

The Bank of Japan releases its latest rate decision on Tuesday and the central bank is widely seen standing pat following its policy framework tweaks last month.

Asian markets held near six-week highs and the dollar hit a two-month low at the start of a busy week of corporate earnings, with Tesla, Starbucks, Microsoft and Amazon set to report results.

Joe Biden makes his first address as president to a joint session of Congress Wednesday while the U.S. releases the first estimates for the March quarter GDP on Thursday.

Gold edged higher on dollar weakness while oil prices eased on concerns that a resurgence of coronavirus infections in India and Japan would cut fuel demand in Asia.

Turkey’s lira edged lower and hovered near a record low due to worsening relations with the United States and worries about a dovish central bank governor.

Germany’s ifo business confidence survey results for April are due later in the session. Economists expect the business climate index to rise to 97.8 from 96.6 in March.

U.S. stocks advanced on Friday as healthy economic data and earnings outweighed concerns about high valuations and surging coronavirus cases globally.

The Dow rose 0.7 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.4 percent and the S&P 500 rallied 1.1 percent.

European stocks closed mostly lower on Friday despite coming off their day’s lows on the back of a slew of earnings announcements and economic data.

The pan European Stoxx 600 edged down 0.1 percent. The German DAX dipped 0.3 percent and France’s CAC 40 index slipped 0.2 percent while the U.K’s FTSE 100 ended on a flat note.

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