European stocks fall; focus on Fed and US tech earnings

LONDON: Europe's share indexes opened lower on Wednesday, while investors focused on the U.S Federal Reserve meeting and U.S. tech giants' earnings.

MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 countries, was down 0.1per cent at 0842 GMT, having edged down in the last week after it hit a new all-time high on Jan. 21.

In the Asian session on Wednesday, shares were hurt by some profit-taking, as investors grew wary of stretched valuations.

European share indexes opened in the red. The STOXX 600 was down around 0.3per cent on the day at 0854 GMT.

London's FTSE 100 was down 0.2per cent while Germany's DAX was down 0.5per cent.

The dollar rose against a basket of currencies as European markets opened, and was at 90.275 at 0846 GMT, up 0.1per cent on the day.

The Fed is not expected to make any policy changes but investors will be listening for changes in tone around the economic outlook and any mention of slowing down - or "tapering" - the Fed's asset purchases.

"The big question will be over any timetable for tapering asset purchases, but Powell is likely to adopt a dovish tone on this, and reiterate that it’s premature to contemplate this given the challenging near-term outlook and remaining uncertainties," Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid wrote in a note to clients.

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield held close to the three-week low it hit in the previous session, and was broadly flat on the day at 1.0398per cent at 0846 GMT.

Quarterly earnings from U.S. tech giants including Facebook and Apple, due later in the session, were also in focus.

"With some financial assets currently trading at what many are describing as bubble territory, there’ll be heightened attention on these releases to see whether these current valuations are justified," Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid said.

Although S&P 500 e-minis were down around 0.1per cent, Nasdaq futures were up 0.4per cent at 0847 GMT, helped by strong Microsoft earnings the previous session. Microsoft said its Azure cloud computing services grew by 50per cent.

Heightened participation of retail investors in the stock market has come into focus this week, as amateur traders on Reddit's r/WallStreetBets stock trading discussion group piled into GameStop, causing it to skyrocket while professional shortsellers scrambled to cover losing bets.

To some stock market professionals, the recent moves look symbolic of a stock market that may be overvalued at the end of a year dominated by floods of fiscal and monetary stimulus to ease the coronavirus crisis.

The International Monetary Fund raised its forecast for global economic growth in 2021, and said the coronavirus-triggered downturn last year would be nearly one percentage point less severe than expected.

Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 100 million on Wednesday and countries around the world are struggling with new variants of the virus and delays in vaccine rollouts.

The United States aims to have enough vaccine doses to vaccinate most Americans by the Summer, President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.

In Europe, supplies of the COVID-19 vaccine have been delayed. Hospitalisations in France hit an eight-week high.

The euro was down 0.1per cent at US$1.21455 at 0848 GMT, while euro zone government bond yields edged up slightly.

Gold was down around 0.2per cent. Bitcoin was down around 3.3per cent.

Oil prices rose after industry data showed U.S. crude stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week and China recorded its lowest daily rise in COVID-19 cases in more than two weeks.

For a graphic on Fed Balance Sheet:

https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xegvbeqrdpq/FedBalanceSheet.png

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Nick Macfie)