Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets fell Friday on fears that rising inflation would prompt central banks in the United States to pull out stimulus as economic growth slows down.

At 3:25 AM ET (0725 GMT), the in Germany traded 1.1% lower, the in France fell 1% and the U.K.’s dropped 0.8%.

These losses were due to Asia weakness earlier Friday. Japan’s index dropped over 2% while Hong Kong and mainland China markets closed. Wall Street was also closed overnight. Meanwhile, the blue chip fell 500 points (or 1.6%) on Wall Street.

German’s August month-end growth was 1.1%, which is a slight rebound from the 4.5% decrease in the previous month, but still below the 1.5% expected.

Daimler stock (OTC:), which was down 2.6% due to shareholder votes on possible spin-off of its truck-making unit from Mercedes-Benz luxury vehicle operations, fell 2.6%. Similar moves by Volkswagen (DE) and Mercedes-Benz (LU:) two years back have not resulted in any additional value for Traton’s truck business.

U.K. retail stock fell more than others after investors accounted for the possible impact on consumer spending by tightening fiscal policy, which will be triggered when the government stops providing many pandemic-era support programs. AO World stock plunged 17% as its half-year update revealed that sales growth had slowed to a crawl. The fast fashion group was also affected. Boohoo (LON:) fell 2.1% to an 18-month low and rival ASOS  (LON:) fell to a 16-month low. JD (NASDAQ:) Sports Fashion (LON:) stock fell 4.3%.

Consistently high inflation and slowing growth have caused concern in global markets. Central banks now seek to end their accommodative monetary policies.

With that in mind, investors will focus on the release of key inflation data later Friday and the likely response from the European Central Bank as the region’s economy recovers from the pandemic. 

It is scheduled to release the September figures at 5 AM ET (0900 GMT) and will show an expected annual rise of 3.3%. This is an increase from the August 3.0%. These figures will be a test of the determination of the European Central Bank, which is convinced that inflation will soon fall below its medium term target of 2.2%.

Crude prices edged lower Friday as traders prepared for next week’s meeting of top producers and the potential for additional output to ease the current tight supply concerns.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with its Russian allies (known as OPEC+), are due to meet Monday. This could allow for more production than the 400,000 barrels per hour already agreed upon in November and December.

Futures were trading 0.3% less at $74.83 per barrel by 3:25 AM ET. Contracts fell 0.2% to $78.12.

The price fell 0.2% to $1.754.35/oz. However, it was 0.1% lower at 1.1587.