European Shares Subdued Ahead Of December Fed Minutes

(RTTNews) - European stocks were subdued on Wednesday as investors looked ahead to the release of Federal Reserve's December meeting minutes later in the day to gauge the rate hike trajectory. Upcoming German inflation and U.S. labor market data also remained on investors' radar.

Meanwhile, Destatis reported that Germany's unemployment remained unchanged in November.

The jobless rate stood at adjusted 3.1 percent, the same as in October. The number of people out of work increased 5,000 from the previous month to 1.36 million in November.

At the same time, the unadjusted unemployment rate held steady at 3.0 percent compared to the same month last year.

Elsewhere, new data from Kantar showed grocery price inflation slowed to an annual rate of 6.7 percent in December, the lowest since the beginning of 2022. Retailers enjoyed their busiest Christmas since 2019, according to the data.

The pan-European STOXX 600 was down 0.3 percent at 477.25 after ending ed 0.1 percent lower the previous day.

The German DAX slipped 0.3 percent, France's CAC 40 shed 0.9 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was marginally lower.

Shipping firm Maersk jumped 5 percent after an announcement that it will not resume a passage through a key Red Sea strait "until further notice."

Computer chip equipment maker ASML fell about 2 percent to extend declines from the previous session after the Dutch government cancelled shipments of some machines to China.

Ryanair tumbled 3 percent. The budget airline said that a number of online travel agents had stopped selling its flights in early December following legal and regulatory pressure.

Wizz Air Holdings fell nearly 2 percent. The budget airline said it carried 4,964,857 passengers in December 2023, an 18.8 percent increase compared to December 2022.

Atos, a multinational information technology service and consulting company, rose over 1 percent after an announcement that it will open due diligence talks with Airbus for a potential sale of its entire big data & security or BDS unit.