Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets will edge higher Tuesday thanks to strong numbers from UBS, the Swiss bank giant.

At 02:05 ET (0605 GMT), Germany’s contract traded 0.2% higher while France rose 0.2%. The U.K. contract, however, was up 0.1%.

UBS (SIX 🙂 earned $2.3 billion net profit in the third quarter. That’s an increase of 2 billion over the previous quarter. Wealth management continued its boom.

These strong results may boost the heavily-weighted banking sector Tuesday, especially after Monday’s healthy numbers from U.K.-based rival HSBC (LON:) – even if neither is a particularly good proxy for the European sector as a whole, given their focus on Asia.

Earlier Tuesday saw Asia market rise thanks to HSBC’s upgrade of its call for Chinese stocks overweight. This was because investors were becoming too bearish, and Wall Street closed Monday at record highs.

French auto parts manufacturer back in Europe Faurecia The company (PA:), reported that its third quarter sales dropped by over 10% compared with a year earlier. Customers cut back production because of the global shortage of semiconductor chip chips.

Thales PA:) reiterated its full year financial projections despite the fact that French defense group posted a 1.4% drop in third-quarter underlying sales while Swiss drugmaker Novartis Third-quarter adjusted operating profits rose by 10%

Carrefour (PA:) will also be in the spotlight after Europe’s largest retailer announced plans to partner with Uber Technologies (NYSE:) to launch a new rapid grocery delivery service in Paris.

Although there are not many economic statistics in Europe, investors will pay attention to a meeting between European Union ministers on Tuesday to examine the spike in energy costs.

Crude prices stabilized Tuesday after the recent strong rally and ahead of the release of the latest U.S. stockpiles from the , a guide to demand in the world’s biggest consumer of oil.

Oil prices have more than doubled over the last year, helped by strong demand in the United States, as the world’s largest economy recovers from the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

A Reuters poll indicates that crude oil inventories rose by 1.7 Million barrels over the week. But, gasoline and distillate inventories should fall.

At 2:05 AM ET futures had traded 0.1% lower at $83.64/barrel, while contract prices were flat at $85.17.

Also, the price of gold was flat at $1.806.30/oz while it traded at just 1.1603