European stock markets closed lower Wednesday amid a slew of earnings and ahead of the latest monetary policy update from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
The benchmark Stoxx 600 index provisionally closed down 0.6%, with most sectors in negative territory. France’s CAC 40 fell 1.4% as luxury goods behemoth LVMH dropped over 5% after reporting a surprise slowdown in U.S. sales after the market close on Tuesday.
Banks were down 0.3% despite Deutsche Bank and UniCredit both beating analyst earnings expectations, while British aerospace and defense firm Rolls-Royce soared over 20% after it hiked its profit forecast for the year.
Markets are betting that it’s a done deal the Fed will opt for a 25 basis point hike, taking its benchmark borrowing rate to a target range of 5.25%-5.5%.
But investors will be watching for signs from the Federal Open Market Committee that members feel comfortable enough in the fight against U.S. inflation to pause for the time being.
That comes ahead of central bank rate decisions from the European Central Bank on Thursday and the Bank of Japan on Friday.
Results are also in from Stellantis, GSK and Carrefour.
In the United States, markets digested an earnings beat from Alphabet and a cloud revenue growth slowdown from Microsoft, ahead of results from Coca-Cola, Boeing, AT&T, Meta, Chipotle and Mattel.
U.S. stocks were mostly lower, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both down and the Dow Jones Industrial average flat, as investors awaited the Fed’s decision and digested results from Big Tech firms.
Source : CNBC
