© Reuters.
By Peter Nurse
Investing.com – European stock markets fell Tuesday, with investors taking a cautious stance ahead of a widely-anticipated speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
At 04:05 ET (09:05 GMT), the in Germany traded 0.6% lower, the in France fell 0.7% and the in the U.K. dropped 0.3%.
Economic data out of Europe has been relatively strong of late, raising hopes that the Eurozone will only suffer a shallow recession in the new year, overturning earlier fears of a severe slowdown.
In fact, Goldman Sachs is no longer predicting a Eurozone recession after the economy proved more resilient at the end of 2022, seeing the region’s increasing 0.6% this year, compared with an earlier forecast for a contraction of 0.1%.
The positive data continued Tuesday, as rose 6.5% last month compared with a year earlier, according to numbers from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG.
rose 2.0% on the month in November, stronger growth than the 0.8% expected, and a considerable improvement from the revised fall of 2.5% the prior month.
However, investors are showing caution ahead of a speech by later in the session, as they seek more clarity on the pace of future U.S. .
Aggressive monetary tightening by the Fed has prompted fears of a recession in the U.S., which would weigh heavily on the global market given the importance of the largest economy in the world.
In corporate news, BMW (ETR:) stock rose 0.6% after the German auto giant said its brand delivered 2.1 million vehicles in 2022, down 5.1% from the previous year, but still maintained its number one position in the global premium segment.
Oil prices fell Tuesday, handing back some of the previous session’s gains on fears that further interest rate hikes in the U.S., the largest consumer of crude in the world, would curb demand.
Industry group is scheduled to release its weekly data on U.S. crude inventories later in the session, while the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, is also due to release its .
By 04:05 ET, traded 0.5% lower at $74.27 a barrel, while the contract fell 0.7% to $79.11.
Both benchmarks climbed 1% on Monday, after China, the world’s biggest oil importer and second-largest consumer, opened its borders over the weekend for the first time in three years.
Additionally, rose 0.2% to $1,880.70/oz, while rose 0.1% to 1.0732.
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