European stock markets started the day fairly muted on Tuesday, following a day of losses the session before.
In London, the FTSE 100 (^FTSE) slipped after opening, almost 0.1% lower, while the CAC (^FCHI) was trading flat in Paris, and the German DAX (^GDAXI) was also treading water.
It comes as investors are continuing to keep their ears to the ground on whether or not the Bank of England (BoE) will hike interest rates soon to combat rising inflation.
“Not a particularly great start to a new week yesterday for markets in Europe, but having just come off the back of three days of strong gains at the end of last week, we were probably overdue a bit of a pullback,” Michael Hewson of CMC Markets said.
“The big question now is whether that means we are back to chopping and changing in the same broad range we’ve been in since the beginning of July, or whether we sustain the positive momentum of the last couple of weeks?”
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Across the pond, S&P 500 futures (ES=F) and Dow futures (YM=F) were up 0.1%, and Nasdaq futures (NQ=F) were likewise 0.1% higher as trade began in Europe.
On Monday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both finished in positive territory, helped by oil prices slipping back from their peaks.
They were also boosted by optimism that last week’s trend of earnings beats will continue later today, when Netflix (NFLX) announces its latest numbers for the third quarter, after the close of US markets tonight.
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Stocks in Asia took their lead from Wall Street overnight, ending the day higher thanks to an outperformance from technology stocks. In Tokyo, the Nikkei (^N225) climbed more than 0.6% while the Hang Seng (^HSI) rose 1.4% and the Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.7% up.
On Monday disappointing GDP data from China had cooled investor sentiment.
Elsewhere, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) was hovering around $62,000 (£44,984), less than $3,000 short of its April record, with a new security to trade the cryptocurrency due to begin trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
Watch: What are SPACs?
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