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European stocks may open flat to slightly higher on Wednesday as investors ponder over risks stemming from the Israel-Hamas conflict and react to improved China data.<\/p>\n
Ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s Middle East trip, Hamas and Israel traded accusations regarding the deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza City that killed 500 people and invited widespread international condemnation. <\/p>\n
On the 12th day of the war, Israeli Prime Minister appeared to be blaming the “evil axis of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran” for the October 7 attacks on his country.<\/p>\n
Most Asian markets<\/span> reversed early losses after China’s GDP growth for the third quarter beat estimates.<\/p>\n China’s economic growth slowed to 4.9 percent year-on-year in the July-September period, down from 6.3 percent in the previous quarter but better than forecasts for 4.4 percent growth. <\/p>\n The readings on retail sales and industrial output for September also surprised on the upside, suggesting that Beijing’s stimulus measures to prop up banking and property sectors are gaining traction.<\/p>\n The yen jumped briefly before after the Bank of Japan announced an unscheduled bond purchase operation.<\/p>\n The dollar index remained on the back foot despite a surge in U.S. Treasury yields on concerns the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer and might even announce a hike in rates this year.<\/p>\n Gold rose about 1 percent to hover near one-month highs and crude jumped nearly 2 percent amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. <\/p>\n The European economic calendar remains light, with consumer and producer prices from the U.K. and EU harmonized CPI data due later in the day. <\/p>\n U.S. stocks ended mixed overnight while Treasury yields rose as encouraging retail sales and industrial production data along with better-than-expected earnings from Bank of America and Goldman Sachs revived Fed rate hike fears.<\/p>\n The Dow inched up marginally, while the S&P 500 ended flat with a negative bias and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.3 percent.<\/p>\n European stocks ended little changed on Tuesday as investors reacted to a slew of downbeat earnings reports and higher bond yields.<\/p>\n The pan European STOXX 600 slipped marginally. The German DAX and France’s CAC 40 both ended flat with a positive bias while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 0.6 percent on favourable labour market data. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n