European Shares Set To Follow Wall Street Lower

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening lower on Wednesday after U.S. stocks recorded their worst single-day losses in a month overnight on fears of an impending recession and lingering worries about the health of the banking sector.

That said, U.S. stock futures were trading higher following encouraging earnings updates from both Microsoft and Alphabet after the U.S. closing bell.

Trading later in the day may be impacted by reaction to the latest earnings news as well as the Commerce Department's report on durable goods orders in the month of March.

U.S. GDP data due on Thursday is expected to show that growth slowed in the first quarter.

Asian markets traded broadly lower amid growing worries of an economic slowdown this year.

Gold was little changed around the $2,000 per ounce level as the dollar traded firm on risk aversion.

Oil prices recovered some ground after having dipped around 2 percent overnight on demand worries.

U.S. stocks fell the most in a month overnight and benchmark Treasury yields dropped as soft economic data and disappointing earnings updates from the likes of First Republic and UPS stoked recession fears.

A measure of U.S. consumer confidence hit a nine-month low, and the Richmond Fed manufacturing index showed contraction for a fourth straight month while new home sales unexpectedly spiked to their highest level in a year in March, separate reports showed.

The Dow lost 1 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2 percent and the S&P 500 shed 1.6 percent.

European stocks fell for a second day on Tuesday as investors reacted to banking sector woes and awaited mega tech earnings.

The pan European STOXX 600 fell 0.4 percent, dragged down by miners and banks.

The German DAX inched up marginally, while France's CAC 40 gave up 0.6 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 dipped 0.3 percent.