Europe midday: Stocks little changed as investors sit on their hands ahead of Fed decision
European shares were little changed with investors sitting on their hands ahead of the US central bank's policy decision due out the next day and while they waited for further news on the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
That is more or less what strategists Citi gleaned from investor positioning, telling clients that investors were "on hold" with limited overall conviction.
"On the one hand, market levels indicate that investors are already looking through the current uncertainty, on the other, positioning shows overall limited conviction in either overall bullish or bearish positioning.
"With less positioning there are fewer critical triggers for forced unwinds and ETF flows have been muted or mixed as well."
Against that backdrop, as of 1240 GMT, the Stoxx 600 was up by 0.06%, alongside a 0.90% rise on the Ibex 35 to 8,398.0 while Germany's Dax was drifting lower by 0.04% to 15,614.0.
The euro was a tad higher against the US dollar, alongside small gains in Brent futures while the German bund was down a bit.
Helping to steady markets, a study by Africa's largest health insurer, Discover, showed much reduced deaths and hospitalisations thus far in the country from Omicron versus previous strains.
On the economic side of things, the unemployment rate in the UK fell from 4.3% to 4.2% as businesses continued to hire staff despite the end of the furlough programme.
And according to Eurostat, euro area industrial production increased at a year-on-year pace of 3.3% in October (consensus: 3.2%).
In equity news, Vifor Pharma was once again in favour after Australian biopharma giant CSL confirmed on Monday it was in talks to buy the Swiss drugmaker in a deal reportedly worth about $7.2bn.
Ocado shares leaped higher as the online grocery delivery company won a patent case against Norwegian robotic company AutoStore and also said it expected to return to strong, mid-teens revenue growth in 2022, at the top of the historic pre-Covid range of 10% - 15%.
Shares in BT Group fell 5% as the Patrick Drahi-owned Altice increased its stake in the British telecoms firm to 18% but said it would not be making a takeover offer.