By Peter Nurse
Investing.com - European stock markets are seen trading mixed on Wednesday, with investors cautious over the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines and ahead of the Federal Reserve's press conference.
At 2:10 AM ET (0710 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.2% lower, and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.4%, while CAC 40 futures in France rose 0.2%.
Equity markets have climbed strongly through much of the last few months, helped not only by the expectation of substantial fiscal stimulus from the U.S. but also by the rollout of vaccines to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, many of the European Union countries have been slow to deliver vaccines to their populations. Not helping has been an ongoing spat between pharma giant AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) and EU health officials over delays in vaccine deliveries within the bloc. Astra CEO Pascal Soriot said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the delays were due to the EU only signing its contract with the company three months after the U.K. signed a similar one.
“Much now depends on the outcome of this race between a mutating virus and vaccines to end the pandemic, and on the ability of policies to provide effective support until that happens,” the International Monetary Fund’s Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said in a blog post Tuesday.
The IMF raised its growth estimate for the global economy to 5.5% in 2021, from +5.2% in its last forecast in October.
Despite this upgrade, German consumer confidence is set to drop sharply, after the latest GfK German consumer climate index fell to -15.6 from -7.5 last month.
Investors will also be keeping an eye on the U.S. Federal Reserve, as the central bank is due to announce results of its two-day policy meeting later Wednesday.
In corporate news, Bloomberg reported that UniCredit's (MI:CRDI) board will appoint ex-UBS investment bank head Andrea Orcel as the bank's new CEO Wednesday, replacing Jean-Pierre Mustier.,
The tech sector will also be in the spotlight after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) released strong results late on Tuesday. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) update later Wednesday. In Europe, SAP (DE:SAPG) is due to provide a strategy update.
Updates from Software AG (DE:SOWGn), Royal KPN (OTC:KKPNY) and Siemens Healthineers (DE:SHLG) are due, with G4S (CSE:G4S) will be in focus after Allied Universal extended its offer for the security company.
Oil prices climbed Wednesday, boosted by industry data showing U.S. crude stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week.
Data from the American Petroleum Institute, released Tuesday, showed a draw of 5.272 million barrels for the week ending Jan. 22, compared with a forecast for a 603,000-barrel build. The U.S. Energy Information Administration data are due later Wednesday.
U.S. crude futures traded 0.8% higher at $53.02 a barrel, while the international benchmark Brent contract rose 0.7% to $56.05.
Elsewhere, gold futures fell 0.2% to $1,847.60/oz, while EUR/USD traded flat at 1.2160.