European Shares Likely To Open On Firm Note

(RTTNews) - European stocks are likely to open on a positive note Tuesday as focus shifts to tech earnings and central bank meetings.

Chip-machine maker ASML, Meta Platforms and Microsoft will unveil their quarterly results and forecasts on Wednesday, while Apple and IBM will follow suit on Thursday. The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates.

To justify further loosening, the Fed needs evidence of economic weakness and more subdued inflation prints.

Most economists expect the U.S. central bank to resume cutting rates only sometime in the first half of the year.

The European Central Bank (ECB) meets on Thursday and another rate cut is fully priced in by markets.

The ECB is expected to continue its rate-cutting cycle in 2025, with analysts expecting moderate cuts of 0.25 percentage points each, probably in each of the four rate monetary policy meetings in the first half of the year.

French consumer confidence survey results and U.S. repots on consumer confidence and durable goods orders may garner some attention later in the day.

Asian markets were broadly lower, with China and South Korea shut for the Lunar New Year holidays.

Tech stocks extended a sell-off in Japan as the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model sparked fears about lofty valuations of the global tech sector.

The dollar strengthened and Treasury yield ticked higher as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of higher universal tariffs and said he'll soon impose tariffs on foreign-produced semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and some metals in a push to increase U.S. production of the products.

In another major development, Scott Bessent, whom the Financial Times said backed gradual universal levies, was confirmed as the new Treasury Secretary under President Trump.

Gold held steady in Asian trade while oil prices edged up slightly after sinking by 2 percent on Monday.

U.S. stocks ended lower overnight, with technology stocks coming under heavy selling pressure as DeepSeek's technological breakthrough cast doubt on Silicon Valley's hefty AI capex spending and the sustainability of the U.S. technical edge in artificial intelligence.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slumped 3.1 percent, while the Dow dipped 0.7 percent and the S&P 500 shed 1.5 percent.

European stocks ended little changed on Monday as gains in defensive stocks offset losses in the technology sector.

The pan European STOXX 600 ended flat with a negative bias. The German DAX dropped half a percent and France's CAC 40 eased 0.3 percent while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 finished marginally higher.