European Shares Set To Decline After Wall Street Rout

European stocks are seen opening broadly lower on Monday after an April rout in technology stocks deepened Friday, dragging the Nasdaq Composite to its worst monthly performance in more than a decade.

Asian stocks fell in thin trade, with markets in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Indonesia closed for holidays.

Underlying sentiment was hit by concerns over inflation, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Covid-19 lockdowns in China.

China’s manufacturing activity slumped to its lowest level since February 2020, official data showed, underscoring the economic damage caused by Covid-19.

In Ukraine, a long-awaited evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was under way Sunday, as U.S. House Speaker NancyPelosi met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in an unannounced visit to Kyiv.

As inflation worries mount, focus now shifts to the central bank meetings in the United States and England as well as the monthly U.S. employment data release.

The U.S. central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates by 50 basis points when it delivers its latest economic and interest rate policy update Wednesday.

The Bank of England is expected to increased interest rates later this week to curb inflation that is running at multidecade high.

Gold traded lower, hit by a stronger dollar and rising U.S. bond yields. The Japanese yen hit a new 20-year low after the Bank of Japan maintained its ultra-easy monetary policy.

Oil prices fell over 1 percent in Asian trade as investors weighed the impacts of China’s measures to contain the Covid outbreak and moves by Europe to cut its reliance on fuel from Russia.

U.S. stocks nosedived on Friday after Amazon reported a surprise loss and issued weak revenue guidance for the second quarter.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite plummeted as much as 4.2 percent to reach its lowest closing level since late November 2020, while the Dow plunged 2.8 percent and the S&P 500 slumped 3.6 percent.

European stocks closed higher on Friday amid another day of busy earnings. The pan European Stoxx 600 climbed 0.7 percent.

The German DAX rose 0.8 percent, France’s CAC 40 index edged up 0.4 percent and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 added half a percent.

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