Peter Nurse 

Investing.com – European stock markets are expected to open higher Tuesday, rebounding to a degree from the previous session’s sharp losses, as investors digest key quarterly results from the banking sector. However, there will be some losses due to concerns about slowing global growth as well as sharp monetary policy tightening.

At 2. AM ET (0600 GMT), Germany’s contract traded 1.6% higher while France saw a 1.6% rise and the U.K. contract rose 1.1%.

European equity indices ended Monday significantly lower, falling 1.5%, and just above 2% respectively. However, they are likely to reap the benefits Tuesday of the late recovery on Wall Street led by tech-heavy. 

Twitter (NYSE:) was a major focus as it finally confirmed it had accepted Elon Musk’s $44 billion offer to take the social media platform private. Both Alphabet and Microsoft report on Tuesday to provide important earnings information.

Back in Europe, it’s the banking sector that will be to the fore, as lending giants HSBC (LON:) and UBS (SIX:) both published quarterly results.

HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, posted a pretax profit of $4.2 billion for the first quarter, ahead of market expectations but this still represented a 27% drop from a year ago. Further buybacks are unlikely in the current year due to rising inflation and uncertainty caused by Russia-Ukraine’s conflict.

UBS did better than expected, with a 17% increase in net profit in the first quarter to $2.14 Billion. This was despite uncertainties surrounding the conflict in Ukraine. Strong trading helped to offset this.

Banco Santander (BME:), Spain’s biggest lender, beat net income expectations in the first quarter, helped by growth in its lending revenue.

Swiss Drugmaker Novartis (SIX) saw a 3% increase in core operating income due to sales growth from the new drugs. Orange (EPA), France’s largest telecom operator, reported a 1% rise in its core operating profit for the first quarter.

The economic outlook remains uncertain as the Shanghai lockdown continues to drag into its fourth weekly period.

Investors are also concerned whether the global economic system can resist the increasingly hawkish pivot by a variety of central banks, notably the Federal Reserve.

As the conflict in Ukraine continues, Russian troops are continuing to bombard the Azovstal steel facility in Mariupol in the southeast. There, some 2,000 Ukrainian fighters have managed to escape. 

Oil prices rebounded Tuesday from the sharp losses of the previous session, but concerns remain that more Covid-19 lockdowns in China will hit demand for crude from the world’s largest importer.

Futures were trading 1% higher at $99.56 per barrel by 2AM ET while contract prices rose 1.3%, to $103.49. On Monday, both benchmarks fell by 4%.

The price of gold rose 0.5% to $1.906.30/oz while it traded 0.1% lower at 1.0726.