European stocks traded higher Tuesday morning as investors shifted their focus to upcoming central bank meetings by the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan and Bank of England.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 added 0.5% by mid-morning following a muted open, with retail stocks adding 1.6% to lead gains while financial services edged 0.2% lower.
Investors in Europe are looking ahead to the results of the latest U.S. Federal Reserve meeting taking place Tuesday-Wednesday, although the central bank is not expected to make any changes to its monetary policy stance and reacting to the latest data from China.
Meanwhile, stocks in Asia-Pacific were mostly higher after data showed retail sales in China rose 0.5% in August from a year ago — the first positive report for the year so far — according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. Still, retail sales for the first eight months of the year were down 8.6% from a year ago, the bureau said.
Chinese industrial production grew 5.6% in August from a year ago while fixed-asset investment declined 0.3% for the first eight months of the year.
U.S. stock futures ticked slightly lower on Monday night after the market kicked off the week with a broad-based rally. Futures tied to the Nasdaq 100 slipped 0.2%, while those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 slouched 0.1%. The move in futures follows a rebound session for Wall Street on Monday.
In terms of individual share price action, H&M rallied more than 13% in early trade after beating third-quarter profit expectations. Fiat Chrysler added more than 6% after a revision of its planned merger with Peugeot maker PSA.
The move also sent shares of French auto parts supplier Faurecia tumbling 6.6%, while German business bank Grenke dropped 8.8% to the bottom of the European blue-chip index.
– CNBC’s Eustance Huang and Jesse Pound contributed to this market report.
