PARIS (Reuters) – The main European stock markets showed slight variations on Wednesday morning in a context of caution before a speech by the President of the American Federal Reserve (Fed), Jerome Powell.

In Paris, the CAC 40 lost 0.08% to 6,980.30 points around 09:00 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 lost 0.17% and in Frankfurt, the Dax lost 0.20%.

The EuroStoxx 50 index fell by 0.25%, the FTSEurofirst 300 by 0.03% and the Stoxx 600 by 0.07%.

Futures contracts on Wall Street predict an almost stable opening for the Dow Jones and the Standard & Poor’s 500, while the Nasdaq could fall by 0.12% the day after a session in New York where two Fed officials, Neel Kashkari and Austan Goolsbee refused to rule out the possibility that the American central bank would further raise its rates.

Jerome Powell will speak this Wednesday from 2:15 p.m. GMT, then also Thursday, while in the euro zone, Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is expected during the day as part of a meeting of the Eurogroup.

“We will probably see a confirmation of what Powell said about three weeks ago at the Economic Club of New York and at the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) last week, that the Fed is going to keep rates at these current levels, but further increases are likely over,” predicts Ilya Spivak, head of macroeconomics at Tastylive.

But the rise of the dollar (+0.18%) and the yield on ten-year Treasury bills to 4.5915% (+3.3 basis points) demonstrate a certain prudence.

In terms of economic indicators, investors are awaiting monthly retail sales data in the euro zone at 10:00 GMT while PMI figures in the bloc, published on Monday, have reinforced fears of a recession.

A shower of results are also livening up trade in Europe, with stocks linked to insurance (-0.64%) weighing particularly heavily on the indices in the wake of the fall of more than 6% in Swiss Life Holding, whose results of the third quarter were disappointing.

ABN Amro (-7.26%), Ahold Delhaize (-6.91%), E.ON (-1.45%) and Bayer (-1.70%) are also penalized after their publications.

Adidas, whose action has gained more than 30% since the start of the year, dropped 1.62% on Wednesday despite announcing a reduction in its stocks.

Commerzbank, for its part, jumped 4.62% thanks to a quarterly net profit more than tripled, while in Paris, Crédit Agricole gained 0.72% after beating expectations in the third quarter.

The quarterly accounts of Continental (+2.2%) and Siemens Healthineers (+0.88%) are also praised.

(Writing by Claude Chendjou, edited by Kate Entringer)

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