European markets close mixed; U.S., UK inflation in focus this week

LONDON — European stocks on Monday closed mixed, with U.S. and U.K. inflation data set to dominate focus in the coming days.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index provisionally ended flat for the session as investors assessed whether the recent market rout is finished.

Travel and leisure stocks slipped 0.8% to lead losses. Meanwhile, oil and gas stocks rose 0.6% even after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) trimmed its 2024 global oil demand growth forecast.

Global stocks see-sawed last week with steep sell-offs followed by a sharp rebound.

In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index ended up with a weekly gain of 0.27%, according to LSEG data, after a 2.9% decline the week before.

U.S. stocks were mixed on Monday as investors looked ahead to key inflation data, with the core producer price index due on Tuesday followed by July’s consumer price index Wednesday.

Traders are hoping to get a better sense of the state of the U.S. economy after recent fears of a job market slowdown spooked traders and rocked the market.

“Overall, there were some nerves at the start of last week and into the weekend, but overall when you look at where we’ve settled it’s kind of a market reset. You’ve seen a lot of the very stretched positioning washed out, you see an easier ability for the market to price some of the fundamentals,” Richard Kelly, head of global strategy at TD Securities, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Monday.

“August is always a scary period, there’s low liquidity and when you get shocks it’s difficult for the market to price but so far, I think it’s cleaned things out a little.”

Markets are likely to be “jittery” until further U.S. releases including on payrolls and manufacturing next month, Kelly added.

U.K. inflation data is due on Wednesday, the first print since the Bank of England cut interest rates by 25 basis points. After two months at 2%, economists polled by Reuters expect the headline rate to tick higher, to 2.3%.