European Shares Seen Tad Higher At Open

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening a tad higher on Thursday as diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between the United States and Iran gather pace.

U.S. President Donald Trump said "a lot of progress had been made" on the subject of reopening the Strait of Hormuz and a deal could be announced this week.

Iran said it had reached an agreement with Oman on a proposed route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, making a potential step toward reopening of the critical waterway for energy supplies.

A joint statement from Tehran and Muscat is under review and in the final drafting stage, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said, adding a deal would be struck "if certain third parties do not obstruct this process."

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News the Iranians are "extraordinarily difficult people", describing the effort to end the war as "messy" and that "it's going to take some time."

Meanwhile, after U.S. private-sector hiring missed expectations in July, investors now await Friday's closely watched nonfarm payrolls report for additional clues on the economic and rate outlook.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday that he believed now is the time to "start slowly moving up" interest rates.

Separately, Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook said that inflation is still too high and she's open to the idea of an interest-rate hike. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly fully endorsed the Fed's decision to hold rates steady last week but warned that the central bank should act aggressively if inflation momentum appears to be building.

According to the CME's FedWatch tool, futures markets are now pricing in a 54 percent chance of a rate hike in September, down from 67 percent from two days earlier.

Asian markets were broadly lower as chip stocks faced selling pressure following a sharp pullback in U.S. semiconductor and technology stocks overnight.

Brent crude futures were little changed above $79 a barrel after the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed they had fired ballistic missiles towards a Saudi oil tanker on the Red Sea off the Saudi Port of Yanbu, underscoring ongoing risks to regional shipping.

Gold traded higher at $4,260 an ounce, rising for a fourth straight session and hitting a seven-week high, driven by softer U.S. labor market data released overnight, a weaker dollar and lower Treasury yields.

U.S. stocks ended mixed overnight. While the Dow rose half a percent to a record on hopes for a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the S&P 500 eased 0.2 percent as data showed U.S. private payrolls growth slowed in July.

Separate data showed U.S. manufacturing continued to expand in July, although momentum remained subdued. Services-sector activity growth came in slightly below market expectations.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 0.8 percent, marking its first decline in five sessions as SpaceX and AMD both stumbled following their quarterly earnings announcements.

European stocks ended mixed on Wednesday as investors assessed a fresh batch of corporate earnings and closely monitored evolving Middle East developments.

The pan-European STOXX 600 ended flat with a positive bias. While the German DAX dropped 0.3 percent, France's CAC 40 and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 both finished marginally higher.