European stock markets are expected to open largely lower Wednesday, weighed by weakness on Wall Street overnight due to worries over slowing economic growth.
At 2:05 AM ET (0605 GMT), the DAX Futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% higher, but CAC 40 Futures in France dropped 0.1% and the FTSE 100 Futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.3%.
The U.S. stock markets started the holiday-shortened week on a subdued note Tuesday, with the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average falling over 260 points, or 0.8%.
Worries of slowing growth, exacerbated by the disappointing August jobs report just as the Federal Reserve considers pulling back its bond-buying program, have prompted a more risk-averse mood.
This weakened sentiment has carried over into Europe on Wednesday, even after Japan followed the Eurozone in revising its estimate for second-quarter growth higher, to 1.9% from the initial estimate of 1.3%.
The European data slate is relatively empty Wednesday, with just French Trade Data and Italian Retail Sales scheduled to emerge. Most attention will be on Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting, with the governing council members potentially discussing a reduction in its asset purchasing program.
In corporate news, Sanofi will be in the spotlight after the French drugmaker announced plans to buy U.S. biopharmaceutical company Kadmon in a $1.9 billion deal.
The FTSE MIB climbed down by 1.03% to 25,801.30. In the cash markets, the DAX Germany was trading down 1.20% to 15,647.65. CAC 40 in France fell by 1.14 % to 6,648.22 while the FTSE 100 in the U.K. were down by 0.82% to 7,088.35. ,at the time of writing.
