European Shares Seen Opening Lower With Tech Earnings In Focus

(RTTNews) - European stocks may open on a sluggish note Thursday as investors react to Facebook parent Meta Platforms' disappointing Q2 revenue outlook and plans to spend nearly $100 billion this year in its AI products.

Separately, computing giant IBM reported first quarter earnings ahead of expectations, but sales came in slightly below expectations.

Microsoft, Intel and Google parent Alphabet will report results after the market close later today amid much uncertainty what an AI-dominated future looks like.

Besides the earnings news, investors will watch closely U.S. reports on first quarter GDP, weekly jobless claims and pending home sales due later in the day for additional clues on the outlook for interest rates.

The U.S. Commerce Department is due to release a report on personal income and spending later this week that includes readings on inflation said to be preferred by the Fed.

Closer home, ECB commentary, German GfK consumer confidence numbers and French business confidence survey results may influence trading sentiment as the day progresses.

Asian stocks were broadly lower, with Japan's Nikkei down more than 2 percent as the yen inched closed lower to the intervention point ahead of the BOJ policy meeting.

The dollar held firm, gold was little changed and oil prices were seeing modest gains ahead of the Fed meeting on April 30 to May 1, with the central bank widely expected to keep rates unchanged.

U.S. stocks ended narrowly mixed overnight as investors awaited cues from upcoming inflation and GDP data as well as mega-cap tech results.

In economic news, new orders for key U.S.-manufactured capital goods rose moderately in March but the data for the prior month was revised lower, pointing to weak business equipment spending in the first quarter.

The Dow inched down 0.1 percent, while the S&P 500 ended flat with a positive bias and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.1 percent.

European stocks gave up early gains to end lower on Wednesday after ECB policymaker and Bundesbank Chief Joachim Nagel said that a June interest rate cut may not be necessarily followed by a series of rate cuts.

The pan European STOXX 600 declined 0.4 percent. The German DAX dipped 0.3 percent, France's CAC 40 eased 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 finished marginally lower.