European Shares Poised For Higher Open

European stocks are likely to open higher on Thursday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted the U.S. central bank could slow the pace or rate hikes.

The upside may remain capped after Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta reported its first-ever quarterly drop in revenue and issued a gloomy forecast, sending its shares down about 4 percent in extended trading.

Qualcomm Inc forecast fourth-quarter revenue below Wall Street targets and Samsung warned of weaker chip demand, adding to concerns that consumers are cutting non-essential spending.

Asian markets were broadly higher and gold inched higher on a weaker dollar while oil prices extended strong overnight gains after the Energy Information Administration reported a fall in oil stockpiles.

A preliminary reading on second quarter U.S. GDP is likely to attract attention later today along with the weekly jobless claims data.

U.S. stocks rallied overnight on the back of better-than-expected results from mega-cap tech companies and Fed Chair Powell’s comments that he doesn’t believe the U.S. is in a recession.

After announcing another 75-bps rate hike, Powell hinted at a slowdown in the pace of rate hikes at future meetings. On the data front, reports on durable goods orders and pending home sales painted a mixed picture of the economy.

The Dow and the S&P 500 rose 1.4 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively to reach their best closing levels in well over a month while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite soared 4.1 percent.

European stocks scaled near seven-week highs on Wednesday, with sentiment helped by some fairly encouraging earnings updates from top U.S. and European companies.

The pan European Stoxx 600 gained half a percent. The German DAX rose half a percent, France’s CAC 40 index climbed 0.8 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 added 0.6 percent.

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