Peter Nurse

Investing.com – European stock markets were largely up Tuesday with oil major BP leading corporate earnings ahead of key central bank policy-setting meetings, such as the Federal Reserve.

By 4:00 AM ET (0800 GMT), the in Germany traded 0.8% higher and the in France rose 1%, while the U.K.’s dropped 0.1%.

European equity markets are trying to shake off a weak showing in April, with the major indices weighed by concerns about economic growth slowing, rising inflation, and Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

U.K.-based energy giant BP’s exit from Russia cost it dearly in the first quarter, the writedown of its stake in oil giant Rosneft driving the oil and gas giant to a $20.38 billion loss.

Its stock rose 2.2% following an increase of more than 50% in the company’s underwriting. This allowed it to boost its buyback program by $2.5 Billion over the next quarter. That is the eighth consecutive quarter.

HSBC (LON:) stock rose 1.9% after the U.K.-based bank’s largest shareholder, Chinese insurance giant Ping An, urged a break-up of the lender, potentially spinning off the Asian business, where it earns two-thirds of its pretax profits, in a bid to improve returns.

The flipside is also possible Galp Energia (LS:) stock fell 4.6% despite the Portuguese oil and gas company reporting a strong rise in first-quarter profit, boosted by soaring global crude prices and higher production.

Logitech (NASDAQ 🙂 stock dropped 1.3% due to a 20% fall in its fourth quarter sales. The Swiss tech company also decreased its fiscal year outlook 2023 by reducing its projections for the next fiscal year. This was in response to the removal of the annual estimates and profits from Russia and Ukraine.

As central banks hold meeting to determine policy, this week will see a lot more attention than usual. This could have a significant impact on market sentiment in the weeks ahead.

It started to roll Tuesday by raising its cash rate 25 basis points, or 0.35%. This is its first increase in over a decade.

On Tuesday, the starts its two-day meeting. It is likely to increase rates by half-point on Wednesday when it makes its policy decision. Thursday will see an expected rise in interest rates.

Elsewhere, fell 13,000 in April, with the unemployment rate remaining at 5.0%, while the March  release is due later in the session.

Oil prices edged lower Tuesday but remained elevated as the European Union is expected to firm up plans to tighten sanctions on Russia this week, potentially agreeing to an embargo on Moscow’s oil.

There has been disagreement within the bloc over whether to take this next step, but expectations are rising with Germany, the union’s largest economy and de facto leader, saying it was prepared to back an immediate embargo. There could be exceptions for Slovakia and Hungary, which are heavily dependent upon Russian oil imports.

The U.S. inventory data data for April 29, 2009 from the industry group will be available later in the session as a precursor to government data on Wednesday.

At 4:00 AM ET futures had traded 0.5% lower at $104.65/barrel, and the contract dropped 0.5% down to $107.06.

Also, the price of gold fell 0.4% at $1,855.79/oz while it traded 0.1% higher to 1.0519.