European Shares Set For Subdued Open On Tariff Angst

(RTTNews) - European stocks may drift lower at open on Tuesday as investors react to the latest tariff updates and look forward to earnings from several big-name companies this week, including Google parent Alphabet, Tesla, General Motors and Intel.

As U.S. President Donald Trump pushes for higher tariffs, the European Union is said to be readying its counterattack.

EU member states are pushing for new and stringent measures to retaliate against U.S. companies, according to a Wall Street Journal report. EU officials are meeting this week to draw up a plan for reprisals, Bloomberg said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday said the Trump administration is "more concerned with high quality deals than getting these deals done by Aug. 1."

On the data front, traders await Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's comments at an event in Washington later today for additional clues about what the U.S. central bank plans to do with interest rates.

Upcoming U.S. jobless claims data and the July business activity report, both due on Thursday, also remain on investors' radar following last week's mixed inflation indicators.

Asian markets were mostly lower due to prevailing tariff uncertainty and political instability in Japan after Prime Minister Ishiba's ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the upper house in a weekend election.

The dollar steadied after pulling back from two straight weeks of gains. Gold inched lower on profit taking after climbing to over one-month highs.

Oil prices were down around 1 percent in Asian trade, extending losses from the previous session amid signs of a brewing U.S.-EU trade conflict.

U.S. stocks ended mostly higher overnight as upbeat earnings and lower bond yields offset lingering trade tensions.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 rose 0.4 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively to hit new record closing highs while the Dow finished marginally lower.

European stocks ended mixed on Monday as reports suggested that EU leaders are preparing for a showdown over U.S. tariff threats.

The pan European STOXX 600 ended flat with a negative bias. The German DAX inched up marginally and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 added 0.2 percent while France's CAC 40 shed 0.3 percent.