LONDON — European markets on Tuesday closed higher as earnings continued to dominate stock action and investors braced for central bank decisions in the U.S. and U.K.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index preliminarily closed 0.53% higher, with most sectors in positive territory. Construction and materials stocks added 1.37%, while mining stocks shed 1.22%.
Investors also contended with the latest earnings releases on Europe, including drinks giant Diageo which tumbled as much as 10% at one point on Tuesday on its first sales decline since 2020. The Johnnie Walker maker was down 4.9% by the close.
Shares of Standard Chartered meanwhile ended the day over 6% higher after the U.K. bank announced its biggest-ever share buyback, of $1.5 billion, and raised its outlook in half-year results.
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Oil major BP ended the day slightly lower, reversing earlier gains, after hiking its dividend, as it beat second-quarter earnings estimates.
On the data front, second-quarter gross domestic product for the euro zone came in at 0.3%, according to a flash reading published Tuesday by the European Union's statistical office. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 0.2% increase on a quarterly basis.
First-quarter GDP was confirmed at 0.3%, unchanged from the initial reading announced earlier in the year.
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Elsewhere, German inflation unexpectedly rose, with the preliminary consumer price index for July coming in at 2.3% on an annual basis. This was slightly above June's 2.2%, which was also the reading expected for July, according to Reuters.
Attention is also on the Federal Reserve's July meeting which wraps up Wednesday, with market pricing indicating this could be the last Fed hold before the central bank starts cutting interest rates.
Investors will be closely monitoring the language used in Fed communications after the revision in June of its forward-looking "dot plot" to just one cut this year.
The Fed will be followed by the Bank of England's monetary policy meeting on Thursday. The decision on whether to bring rates lower or keep them steady is seen as being on a knife-edge despite U.K. inflation coming in at the BOE's 2% target for the last two months.
Asia-Pacific markets closed mostly lower Tuesday as the Bank of Japan commenced its meeting.
Stateside, the S&P 500 rose on Tuesday as investors monitored key corporate earnings from the likes of Merck, Pfizer, PayPal, Procter & Gamble and JetBlue.
