By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are expected to open just higher Tuesday, helped by strength in the heavyweight energy sector, but gains are likely to be restrained following the previous session’s broad selloff on Wall Street.
At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% higher, CAC 40 futures in France climbed 0.2% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. rose 0.3%.
The positive open for Europe comes despite concerns over losses on Wall Street on Monday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, in particular, falling more than 2% on the back of rising Treasury yields as the standoff over the U.S. debt ceiling continues.
Tech weakness nonetheless translated to selling in Asia, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 falling more than 2%, while markets in mainland China remain closed.
Back in Europe, the important energy sector is set to get a boost from crude oil prices rising to multi-year highs after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies led by Russia, a group known as OPEC+, decided to continue increasing output only gradually despite demand recovering as the Delta-variant Covid-19 wave ebbs. Global cases hit their lowest in nearly two months on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins data.
OPEC+ ignored requests from a number of countries, including the U.S. and India, the largest and third largest consumers in the world, to produce more to lower prices.
By 2 AM ET, U.S. crude futures traded 0.1% higher at $77.64 a barrel, while the Brent contract rose 0.1% to $81.30. Both contracts gained well over 2% on Monday, with WTI hitting a seven-year high and Brent reaching a three-year peak.
In corporate news, Swiss Re (OTC:SSREY) will likely be in the spotlight after the reinsurer estimated Tuesday its preliminary claims burden from Hurricane Ida at $750 million, while updating its loss estimate for the July floods in Europe to approximately $520 million. In the U.K., bakery chain Greggs will get attention after raising its profit forecast for the full year despite warning of rising cost pressures.
The auto sector may also be in focus after British new car registrations fell last month by 35% year on year, according to preliminary industry data Tuesday, marking the weakest September for at least 23 years.
Additional economic data scheduled for release Tuesday include French industrial output, the latest Italian GDP reading and the final PMI data for the European region.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.5% to $1,758.55/oz, while EUR/USD traded 0.2% lower at 1.1595.