European Shares Set For Cautious Start With Focus On Fed Meeting

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening mostly lower on Tuesday as investors seek direction from upcoming earnings, U.S. data releases and the FOMC meeting.

Investors eagerly await the Federal Reserve's policy meeting on Wednesday for directional cues.

No change in interest rates is expected, but the accompanying policy statement and remarks by Fed Chair Jerome Powell may offer some clues on what the U.S. central bank might cut interest rates in the coming months.

Apart from the FOMC meeting, upcoming earnings reports of Amazon and Apple as well as the April U.S. jobs report also remain on investors' radar.

Closer home, flash quarterly national accounts from Eurozone and other major euro area economies are due later in the session, headlining a hectic day for the European economic news.

Asian stocks traded mostly higher, with Japanese markets leading reginal gains as trading resumed after a long weekend.

Chinese and Hong Kong markets were subdued after the latest batch of Chinese business activity readings painted a mixed picture of the world's second largest economy.

China's manufacturing and services activity both expanded at a slower pace in April, official surveys showed.

At the same time, the Caixin factory survey revealed manufacturing activity grew more quickly as new export orders rose.

The yen clung to gains after suspected intervention by Japanese authorities in the currency market.

Gold edged down slightly, and oil held its biggest drop in almost two weeks as Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks in Cairo helped quell market fears of an expanded conflict in the Middle East.

U.S. stocks eked out modest gains overnight to extend last week's gains as the Fed meeting loomed and Tesla said it had cleared its path to roll out self-driving software in China.

The Dow and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite both rose about 0.4 percent while the S&P 500 added 0.3 percent.

European stocks gave up early gains to end mixed on Monday. The pan European STOXX 600 finished marginally higher.

The German DAX slipped 0.2 percent and France's CAC 40 shed 0.3 percent while the U.K.'s FTSE 100 ended flat with a positive bias.