European stock markets were largely higher in cautious trading on Wednesday ahead of a key Federal Reserve meeting, while political uncertainty weighed on UK markets.
At 3:50 a.m. ET (0850 GMT), the DAX in Germany was trading 0.3% higher, the CAC 40 in France was up 0.7%, while the FTSE 100 was down 0.2%.
The US Fed concludes its latest policy-setting meeting late Wednesday, announcing its decisions at 2pm ET (1900 GMT), followed by Chairman Jerome Powell's press conference. started half an hour later. He is expected to announce a swift end to the Fed's bond-buying program, taking a step toward raising interest rates to bring down consumer prices that are rising at their fastest pace in nearly 40 years.
Back in Europe, shares of Inditex (MC:ITX) fell 2.4% after the world's largest fashion retailer and owner of Zara stores posted a net profit of 2 €0.5 billion ($2.82 billion) in the first nine months of its fiscal year, still less than the €2.7 billion reported for the same period in 2019.
Shares of H&M Hennes & Mauritz (ST: HMb) fell 2.1% after the world's second-largest fashion retailer reported a September-to-November net sales increase of 8%, in line with expectations. . At the end of the quarter, about 115 stores were temporarily closed due to restrictions, compared with about 100 stores at the beginning of the quarter.
On the other hand, shares of Generali (MI:GASI) rose 1.4% after the Italian insurer announced plans to return 6.1 billion euros ($7 billion) in dividends and buybacks to shareholders.
