Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets will open slightly higher on Thursday as investors keep track of developments in Ukraine, and French Presidential Campaign.

At 02:05 ET (0605 GMT), Germany’s contract traded 0.4% higher while France’s contract rose 0.3%. The U.K contract rose 0.3%.

The war in Ukraine remains at the forefront of investors’ thinking, with Russia now focusing on overrunning the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, a campaign that the West anticipates could last many months.

Tuesday’s announcement by the G7 finance ministers was that additional financial support for Ukraine would be provided of at least $24 Billion in 2022.

Additionally, U.S. President Joe Biden is set to deliver later Thursday an update on the Russian invasion amid expectations that he will announce another arms package for Ukraine’s military, following on from the $800 million deal announced last week.

Elsewhere, French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen took part in a heated late Wednesday, ahead of Sunday’s vote which is set to decide the path of Europe’s second largest economy for the next five years.

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank will participate in a discussion with Jerome Powell and other Fed Chairs at Thursday’s IMF-World Bank Meeting. The Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Christine Lagarde will discuss their comments in order to find clues for future monetary policy. After the surge to 7.5% (from 5.9% last month), her remarks will be carefully analyzed.

The ECB could lift policy rates above zero before the end of the year unless the eurozone economy suffers a severe shock, and it might even have to deploy “restrictive” policy to get surging prices under control, Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch said Thursday. 

Nestle (SIX 🙂 is the latest corporate news. This comes after Nestle, a Swiss food chain confirmed its 2020 targets. Strong price rises to combat inflation have led organic sales growth of more than expected during the first quarter.

Getlink (EPA) will be also in the spotlight after Getlink, the operator of Channel Tunnel reported a nearly 50% increase in its first quarter revenues. This is as Europe slowly recovers from the pandemic.

The strong U.S. market and tight supply caused oil prices to edge higher on Thursday.

The U.S. crude oil supply data was released Wednesday and showed that there was a draw in 8 million barrels during the week ending April 15. This confirms the high numbers reported by the sector body at the session before.

OPEC member Libya claimed Wednesday that Libya was experiencing a loss of more than 550,000 barrels per hour of its oil production due to blocking. The European Union, however, is contemplating a ban against Russian oil as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

Futures were trading 1.4% higher at $103.60 per barrel by 2:05 ET while contract prices rose 1.5% to $108.37 

The price fell 0.1% to $1954.70/oz. However, it was largely unchanged at 1.0850.