European Shares Set To Fall As Investors Brace For US CPI Data

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening broadly lower on Tuesday as investors await cues from U.S. CPI data due later in the day and British inflation and Eurozone GDP data expected on Wednesday.

The U.S. Labour Department's closely watched report on consumer price inflation for January is due later in the day.

Economists expect U.S. inflation to ease to 2.9 percent year-on-year from 3.4 percent in December. Annual core CPI inflation is also expected to slow to 3.7 percent from 3.9 percent.

Other key U.S. economic reports due this week include readings on retail sales, production, imports and exports, housing starts and the producer prices.

Closer home, unemployment data from the U.K. and France are awaited later in the day. Asian stocks traded mixed, with Japanese and South Korean markets rising as trading resumed after a long holiday weekend.

Japan's Nikkei jumped more than 2 percent to hit a fresh 34-year high as the dollar flirted with the psychological threshold of 150 yen.

Gold was little changed after closing lower in the overnight U.S. trading session.

Oil clung to small gains after ending roughly flat on Monday amid demand worries and uncertainty about the pace of potential U.S. interest-rate cuts.

U.S. stocks ended mixed overnight as key inflation data loomed and a Federal Reserve Bank New York survey showed consumer expectations for one-year and five-year inflation growth were unchanged at 3 percent and 2.5 percent in January.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.3 percent and the S&P 500 ended little changed with a negative bias while the Dow inched up 0.3 percent to a record closing high.

European stocks closed higher on Monday after comments from ECB official Fabio Panetta that the time for cutting interest rates was "fast approaching."

The pan European STOXX 600 advanced half a percent. The German DAX climbed 0.7 percent, France's CAC 40 added 0.6 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 finished marginally higher.