Europe close: Stocks surrender early gains
Most of the main European stock market gauges ended lower on Tuesday, under pressure following the release of better-than-expected US job opening and consumer confidence data which appeared to revive concerns over the near-term inflation picture in the US.
To take into account, in the background, investors were waiting on euro area consumer price data for August due out the next day and the monthly US jobs report on the following Friday, analysts said.
As of 1146 BST, the German Dax was gaining 1.77% to 13,121.16, the FTSE Mib was ahead by 1.56% to 22,183.75 and the Cac-40 was up by 1.07% to 6,289.07.
Brent crude oil futures however were down by 5.68% to $99.41 a barrel on the ICE, alongside a 25.1% drop in TTF gas futures to €247.51/MWh.
Euro/dollar was up by 0.3% to 1.0027, helped by news that Germany was running ahead of plan to hit its gas storage targets ahead of the winter.
Worth noting, rate-setters at the European Central Bank were due to meet on 8 September amid expectations for a further 50 basis point interest rate hike.
Market participants were also keeping tabs on the news-flow out of Ukraine following the launch of a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the country's south.
On the economic side of things, the European Commission reported a decline in its Economic Sentiment Index for August to 97.6, which was down from a reading of 98.8 for July (consensus: 98.6).
The sub-index for industrial sentiment in the single-currency bloc slipped to 1.2 (consensus: 1.8) from 3.4 in July.
According to Claus Vistesen, chief euro area economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, the ESI squared with his forecast for a 0.3% quarter-on-quarter contraction in gross domestic product growth over the three months to June.
In Germany, the annual rate of increase in harmonised CPI was reported as up by 8.8% in August on a preliminary basis, which was in-line with expectations.
Engie shares recovered most of an earlier price drop after Russian state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom told the French utility that it would begin to reduce shipments immediately as a result of contractual disputes.