LIVE MARKETS-Europe before the bell: a bit quieter

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EUROPE BEFORE THE BELL: A BIT QUIETER

European markets look set for a quieter open on Wednesday, though, to be fair, around this time of the day on Tuesday things were pretty calm, and look how that ended up.

Euro Stoxx 50 futures are up over 0.5% after the index dropped 1.4% on Tuesday, and long dated euro zone bonds aren't doing much either.

It's still a little jittery out there though.

On the data front there's a lot of second tier data, probably the most intersting will be U.S. JOLTs numbers, and there are a lot of central bank speakers from the Fed, ECB and BoE, the last of which could be the most interesting after Britain was at the centre of Tuesday's selloff when both bonds and sterling took a hit.

On the company news side, Insurer Swiss Life SLHN.S posted a lower first half net profit on Wednesday, mainly as a result of 36 million Swiss francs ($45 million) in higher tax expenses, while British insurer and asset manager M&G MNG.L posted a marginal increase in first-half adjusted operating profit on Wednesday, but reported net inflows of 2.6 billion pounds ($3.51 billion).

Brazil's competition authority has launched an investigation into Anglo American's AAL.L plan to sell its nickel operation in the country, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.

(Alun John)

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