EUROPE EYES SOLID START AS OIL PROFITS CONTINUE TO ROLL IN (0740 GMT)
European stocks are set for a solid start with March futures contracts up 0.8%, wiping out Tuesday's losses and then some.
Some blockbuster earnings are rolling in from France. Oil major TotalEnergies posted a record adjusted net profit continuing a spate of positive earnings for the sector, which also includes the latest from Norway's Equinor .
Meanwhile France's third biggest bank Societe Generale posted higher-than-expected
profit in the fourth quarter, and another bank - Italian state-owned Monte dei Paschi di Siena - has also outdone expectations with its larger-than-expected quarterly profit.
In a speech on Tuesday, Fed chair Jerome Powell, while acknowledging that interest rates may
need to move higher, still struck a less hawkish tone than had been feared which sent stocks
higher on Wall Street overnight and on Wednesday in Asia and weighed on the dollar.
A warning signal came from the UK's largest housebuilder Barratt Developments Plc ,
after it flagged persisting market uncertainty as high mortgage rates weigh on demand and a
sharp fall in house prices dent margins.
(Lucy Raitano)
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