Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets will open higher on Wednesday after the broad selloff prior to the publication of important U.S. inflation data, which may have an impact on how aggressively Federal Reserve raises interest rate.

At 02:05 ET (0605 GMT), Germany’s contract traded 0.2% higher while France rose 0.7%. The U.K. contract increased 0.4%.

European equity markets have been struggling recently, following Wall Street’s lead. The pan-European Index fell to two months lows due to concerns about rising inflation, which could prompt the Fed and central banks to raise interest rates. This would increase the risk of a global recession.

The U.S. central bank raised  by 50 basis points last week and pointed to a series of cuts of this size in the months ahead. There has been speculation that the Fed may need to raise its interest rate by 75 basis points at one meeting in order to fight inflation levels unprecedented for over 40 years.

With this in mind, the release of the U.S. for April, at 8:30 AM ET (1230 GMT), will be the day’s main event. From 8.5% in the month before, the index will be expected to fall to 8.1% for the year.

Earlier Wednesday, China’s factory and consumer prices accelerated faster than expected in April, as COVID lockdowns disrupted supply chains. While the 2.1% increase was year-on year, it rose by 8%.

German also saw a 7.4% increase in April over the previous year, as compared to 7.3% and 2.5% respectively in March.

According to corporate news, Philip Morris (NYSE 🙂 has confirmed that it is making a cash recommendation for the purchase of Swedish tobacco producer and maker of nicotine products. Swedish Match (ST:) The Stockholm-listed company is valued at $16 billion

Thyssenkrupp is a German industrial conglomerate. (ETR:). Alstom Other subjects to be examined include (EPA:), Commerzbank, (ETR) Continental, (ETR) E.ON (ETR) and Siemens Energy.

Oil prices bounced Wednesday, after slumping around 9% over the previous two sessions, with the market caught in a dynamic between the destruction of Chinese demand, given the country’s ongoing COVID lockdowns and the restriction of Russian supply.

Reports indicate that crude stocks in the United States rose by 1.62million barrels last Week. Traders will now be examining government data due to arrive later in session.

At 2:05 AM ET futures had traded at $102.14/barrel, 2.4% more than the previous day, and contract was up 2.5% to $104.98.

Also, the price of gold fell 0.2% at $1,837.04/oz while it traded 0.2% higher to 1.0546.