European Stocks Broadly Higher In Cautious Trade Ahead Of Fed Policy

(RTTNews) - European stocks are broadly higher around noon on Wednesday, with investors largely making cautious moves as they await the Federal Reserve's policy announcement due later in the day.

Worries about banking turmoil have eased a bit following coordinated steps taken by governments and central banks, and the focus now is on Fed's rate decision and the accompanying statement for clues about future rate hikes.

The Bank of England is scheduled to announce its monetary policy on Thursday.

The pan European Stoxx 600 is up 0.3%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 is up slightly, Germany's DAX is gaining 0.56% and France's CAC 40 is up 0.33%, while Switzerland's SMI is edging up marginally.

In the UK market, Barclays, HSBC Holdings, Natwest Group, Standard Chartered and Lloyds Banking Group are gaining 1.5 to 3%.

Melrose Industries, Coca-Cola, WPP, Kingfisher and Smith & Nephew are also notably higher.

British Land Company is down more than 4%. Segro is lower by about 3.2% and Land Securities is down 2.6%. Rio Tinto, Severn Trent, BT Group, Burberry Group, Vodafone, Mondi and DS Smith are also notably lower.

In Paris, Societe Generale, WorldLine, BNP Paribas, L'Oreal, Credit Agricole and Renault are gaining 1 to 2.3%.

Unibail Rodamco is declining 3.7% and TotalEnergies is down by about 1.1%.

In the German market, Covestro is rising 2.6%. Siemens, Siemens Healthineers, Zalando, Henkel, HeidelbergCement, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz Group are gaining 1.5 to 2%.

In economic news, UK consumer price inflation unexpectedly accelerated in February after slowing for three straight months, adding to the dilemma of the Bank of England policymakers who are set to decide this week whether to raise interest rates this month in the backdrop of the financial market turmoil.

Consumer prices increased 10.4% annually in February after a 10.1% gain in January, the Office for National Statistics reported Wednesday. Inflation was forecast to slow to 9.9%.

Headline inflation had peaked at 11.1% in October 2022 to mark the highest level since 1981.

Core inflation advanced to 6.2% from 5.8% a month ago, while it was forecast to slow marginally to 5.7%.

A report from the European Central Bank said the euro area current account surplus grew at the start of the year, underpinned by an increase in the surplus on goods trade.

The current account surplus rose to EUR 17 billion in January from EUR 13.0 billion in the previous month, the report showed. The expected surplus was EUR 16.5 billion.