European Shares Slip On Hawkish Fed Talk

(RTTNews) - European stocks were flat to slightly lower on Wednesday, as investors fretted over a worsening energy crisis and hawkish comments from Fed officials on the pace of future rate rises.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said on Tuesday inflation is much more embedded at a much higher level and the central bank has to be more aggressive to bring it under control.

It is believed that Fed Chair Jerome Powell's Friday morning speech at Jackson Hole could cement the market tone until the next Federal Open Market Committee meeting next month.

Investors also await minutes of the ECB's last policy meeting, which might provide additional hawkish signals.

The pan European Stoxx 600 was marginally lower at 431.29 after declining 0.4 percent on Tuesday.

The German DAX slipped 0.1 percent, France's CAC 40 was little changed with a negative bias and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 dipped 0.2 percent.

Miners Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore lost 1-2 percent in London on concerns that the risk from China's property sector could spill into the wider economy weighed on the mining sector.

Costain Group fell over 1 percent. The construction engineering firm reported that its first-half profit before tax increased to 11.2 million pounds from last year's 9.1 million pounds.

Lookers, a car dealership chain, surged nearly 6 percent after reporting a rise in first-half profit and sales, despite the ongoing weakness of the U.K. auto market.

CTS Eventim AG, a German provider of ticketing services and live entertainment, rose 1.4 percent after it posted a surge in normalized-EBITDA for the first-half, driven by a rise in sales.

Swedish construction and project development company Skanska AB edged up slightly after it signed a contract with National Highways to upgrade a 6.6 kilometre stretch of the A46 Newark Bypass in the Midlands region, U.K.