In the wake of hawkish remarks from Fed officials and before Jerome Powell's highly anticipated speech, European stock markets are set to open lower.

In the wake of hawkish remarks from Fed officials and before the Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's highly anticipated speech, European stock markets are projected to begin lower on Tuesday. Today could see the FTSE 100 snap its winning streak.

In contrast to early worries of a catastrophic downturn, European markets ended the day higher on Monday, trading around eight-month highs. This was due to increased optimism that the Eurozone will only experience a brief recession in the next year.

Raphael Bostic and Mary Daly, two Fed members, stated that the U.S. central bank will probably raise (interest) rates to over 5% and maintain them there for some time as it strives to contain the still-high inflation rate. This statement caused the mood to change overnight.

Fears of a U.S. recession have been sparked by the Fed's aggressive monetary tightening, which is expected to have a significant impact on the worldwide market given the significance of the largest economy in the world.

As investors seek additional information on the timing of future rate rises, this brings the speech by Fed Chairman Powell later in the afternoon sharply into focus.

Back in Europe, figures from the British Retail Consortium and KPMG, issued earlier Tuesday, showed that U.K. retail sales increased 6.5% last month compared to a year earlier.

Paul Martin, KPMG's U.K. head of retail, stated, "The statistics for the sales increase in December appear robust." Followed by, "this is mostly because items are more expensive and hides the fact that individuals are buying much fewer goods than at this time last year."

The November industrial output figures for France, Spain, and Spain's consumer confidence are among the other statistics that will be released on Tuesday.

Tuesday is set to be a big day for business news as Airbus is scheduled to release its yearly deliveries and orders for commercial aircraft.

Overnight Tuesday trading saw a decline in oil prices as investors worried that more interest rate increases in the United States, the world's largest consumer of petroleum, would reduce demand.

Later in the day, the American Petroleum Institute will issue its weekly statistics on U.S. crude inventories, and the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy's statistical division, will do the same with its short-term energy forecast.

(Investing.com, reuters.com)