European stock markets are seen opening lower Wednesday, continuing the recent global selloff as surging commodity prices and growing inflationary pressure in the United States stoke concerns of early rate hikes.

At 2:05 AM ET (0705 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.4% lower, CAC 40 futures in France dropped 0.7% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.4%.

In Europe, the U.K.’s GDP contracted 1.5% in the first quarter as the country’s government took the first steps to exit the Covid-19 restriction measures only in early March.

In corporate news, Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) swung to a first quarter profit, beating expectations, as the German lender undergoes a major restructuring, while Bayer (OTC:BAYRY) reported a rise in net profit despite slightly lower sales and upheld its outlook for the year.

In a busy day of earnings, releases are also due from the likes of EDF (PA:EDF), Allianz (DE:ALVG), Tui (DE:TUIGn), Aegon (NYSE:AEG) and RWE (DE:RWEG).

The pan-European Stoxx 50 down by 1.92% at 3,946.1. In the cash markets, the DAX futures Germany was trading down 1.82% at 15,119.75. CAC 40 futures in France down by 1.86% at 6259.60 while the FTSE 100 futures in the U.K. up 0.13% at 6,960.0, at the time of writing.

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