Europe open: Stocks start slightly higher ahead of key Trump speech

European stocks began Tuesday's session with slight gains ahead of a key speech from US president Donald Trump scheduled for late in the evening.

Investors were hoping Trump would use the occasion to provide further details on his tax cut and spending proposals.

As of 0833 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was edging higher by 0.07% to 369.78, as Germany's Dax gained 0.05% to 11,832.85 and the FTSE Mibtel tacked on another 0.13% to 8,939.59.

In parallel, front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were off by 0.11% at $53.99 a barrel on the ICE, while the euro/dollar was edging down by 0.07% to 1.0583.

"Today’s highlight is President Trump’s speech to Congress with everyone hoping for him to go beyond rhetoric and disclose some details of the new administration’s planned tax reform," analysts at UniCredit said.

UniCredit said it was "highly speculative to come up with a clear picture for markets ahead of any detailed announcement and the market response may heavily depend on the question of border-adjustment taxes, which in our view would have negative consequences not just for the main US trading partners but for the US itself. In the end, it would not be surprising to see US yields moving slightly higher across the curve due to a revival of the reflation trade story."

Consumer spending in France grew by 0.6% month-on-month in January, albeit mainly thanks to a large jump in energy consumption, although economists were optimistic that consumption would bounce back over coming months.

Also in France, the cost of living dipped from a 1.3% year-on-year pace in January to a 1.2% clip for February, missing forecasts for an advance of 1.5% by a wide margin.

Also on the economic calendar for Tuesday, US fourth quarter GDP figures were set for release at 1330 GMT, followed by the Chicago purchasing managers' index for February.

In corporate news, Volkswagen's supervisory board decided to cut executives' pensions to just 40.0% of their base salary, down from 50.0%, German daily Bild reported.

Pan-European aerospace giant Airbus appointed a new head for its problem-prone A400M military cargo aircraft.