European Shares Seen Tad Higher At Open On Fed Rate Cut Hopes

(RTTNews) - European stocks may open flat to slightly higher on Thursday as a bond market sell-off stabilized and dovish Fed comments coupled with weak U.S. data reinforced rate-cut bets.

Fed independence worries also eased, with Stephen Miran, President Donald Trump's nominee for the open Federal Reserve Governor role, pledging to uphold independence of monetary policy in his opening remarks submitted to the Senate Banking Committee.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration on Wednesday night asked the Supreme Court to quickly intervene to overturn a lower court decision that found most of his tariffs are illegal.

Trading later in the day may be impacted by reaction to a slew of U.S. economic data, including reports on weekly jobless claims, service sector activity and the U.S. trade deficit.

As the labor market shows signs of fatigue, all eyes now turn to Friday's jobs report for August—the first since July's shocker, which included a massive downwards revision of jobs growth for May and June.

Asian stocks were mostly higher even as Chinese and Hong Kong markets fell sharply following reports that China's financial regulators are considering a number of cooling measures for the stock market, including lifting certain short selling restrictions.

The dollar index treaded water after weakening in the previous session amidst bond market volatility. Gold fell nearly 1 percent after surging to a fresh record high on Wednesday.

Oil traded lower, extending a decline of more than 2 percent in the previous session on concerns that OPEC+ may boost supplies.

Overnight, U.S. stocks ended mixed as data showed job openings slipped in July to the lowest level in 10 months, reflecting a softening labor market and reinforcing bets on a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said the U.S. central bank should begin lowering interest rates this month and make multiple cuts in the next three to six months.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1 percent as a favorable court ruling regarding Google's search engine in a major antitrust case fueled optimism that tech giants will be able to weather regulatory threats.

The S&P 500 gained half a percent while the narrower Dow finished marginally lower.

European stocks closed broadly higher on Wednesday after the release of mostly encouraging regional data on private sector activity.

The pan European STOXX 600 advanced 0.7 percent. The German DAX rose half a percent, France's CAC 40 climbed 0.9 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 added 0.7 percent.