European Shares Set To Open On Cautious Note

(RTTNews) - European stocks are seen opening a tad lower on Friday as investors monitor ongoing trade talks and react to the long-simmering clash between U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

European Union officials are voicing optimism about a possible trade deal with the United States, but Trump's position is seen to have hardened ahead of the August 1 deadline.

The member states adopted on Thursday the list of countermeasures targeting €93 billions' worth of U.S. products that will come into effect on August 7 in case the talks fail.

Meanwhile, the Bloomberg reported that the first in-person meeting between the EU and Chinese leadership since 2003 made little progress in terms of concrete deliverables.

The EU warned China against providing material support to sustain Russia's military-industrial base and highlighted the fact that current trade relations remain 'critically unbalanced'.

China vowed retaliation after Brussels sanctioned two Chinese banks and five companies for allegedly helping Russia circumvent Ukraine war-related sanctions.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sparred face to face Thursday over the cost of renovations of the Fed's buildings.

Trump claimed the project cost $3.1 billion, a figure that Powell corrected, explaining it included costs from a completed project.

Later, Trump made it clear that he saw the issue of lower interest rates as a more pressing concern and that problems with the project probably weren't reason enough to fire the central bank head.

U.S. stock futures edged higher as investors looked ahead to next week's Federal Reserve policy meeting, key U.S. jobs data, and earnings from the likes of Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

Asian markets were broadly lower, breaking their longest winning streak since January, due to uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's rate-cut trajectory.

The dollar recovered from two-week lows but was on track for its biggest weekly drop in a month.

Gold was subdued as trade talk optimism weighed on its safe-haven appeal. Oil prices climbed despite news of the potential for more oil supply from Venezuela.

Overnight, U.S. stocks ended mixed as stronger-than-expected earnings from Google parent Alphabet offset an uptick in Treasury yields.

Economic reports painted a mixed picture of the economy, with jobless claims seeing an unexpected dip last week and new home sales holding steady at a relatively tepid level in June.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2 percent and the S&P 500 inched up marginally to hit fresh record closing highs while the Dow dropped 0.7 percent, dragged down by IBM and Tesla shares.

European stocks ended mostly higher on Thursday as the European Central Bank held rates steady for the first time in over a year, as widely expected, citing trade tension uncertainty.

The pan European STOXX 600 gained 0.2 percent. The German DAX edged up by 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 climbed 0.9 percent while France's CAC 40 shed 0.4 percent.