Aug 23 (Reuters) – European shares were largely flat on Friday, navigating through mildly turbulent trading, as investors were cautious ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s eagerly-awaited speech later in the day.
ALL EYES ON POWELL’S SPEECH
Overnight, Wall Street also lost ground, with all three major indexes losing between 0.4% and 1.67%.
“Powell never gives out free information just for the sake of it. We’ll definitely get confirmation over a rate cut today, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he still comes off as pretty reluctant,” Daniela Hathorn, senior market analyst at Capital.com said.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey is also scheduled to speak at the symposium later in the day.
STOXX 600 LAGS S&P500
The continent-wide index was set to log a 1% gain this week and also on course for a three-week winning streak, a move last seen nearly five months ago.
“There’s still momentum in the U.S. because we still haven’t seen that rate cut. But for Europe, we’ve already seen the European Central Bank cut rates and earnings have started to weaken. What else is there to drive momentum? That’s where investors are at the moment,” Capital.com’s Hathorn said.
The technology sector was the biggest weight on the STOXX 600, dropping 0.8%.
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Reporting by Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Mrigank Dhaniwala
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