index started trading just below the flatline, down 0.01%, with sectors trading in mixed territory. Travel and leisure stocks were down 0.9%, while oil and gas added 0.3%.April's consumer price index report is due out on Wednesday and economists expect that it rose 0.4% in April on a month-over-month basis, or 3.4% from 12 months earlier. Traders are hoping that a return to Federal Reserve rate hikes is largely off the table despite a recent slew of hotter-than-expected inflation prints.
It comes a day after Anglo American rejected a raised takeover offer from BHP saying it continued to significantly undervalue the company.U.K. unemployment rose to 4.3% in the three months to March, new data from the Office for National Statistics showed Tuesday. The rate was in line with analyst expectations and slightly up from the 4.2% recorded in the previous period to February.
The Bank of England will be closely monitoring labor data and its impact on inflation even as it signaled that a rate cut could come at its next meeting in June.Last week's equity rally following a rocky period in April indicates the market is moving past its pullback, according to HSBC. With investors looking toward Wednesday's CPI report, Toms believes"the bar for ever more hawkish surprises is getting higher." Consequentially, the strategist believes even in-line expectations could be another catalyst for risk assets to climb higher.There's been so much love for one global chip stock that as many as 14 analysts upgraded it in the past two weeks.