Economic calendar: US consumer confidence, earnings from Microsoft and Alphabet

• European markets set for lower opening

• Conference Board consumer confidence, API report on oil inventories

• Earnings reports from Microsoft, Alphabet and many others

Futures markets point to a lower opening of the European stock market session. While Asian session was quite upbeat with the majority of indices booking small gains, moods are weaker ahead of the European cash open. USD is the worst performing G10 currency, giving a boost to commodities. Cryptocurrencies are pulling back with Bitcoin trading over 4% lower at press time.

Economic calendar for the European morning today is empty. Things get a bit more interesting in the afternoon with the US Conference Board index for July but data is not the focus today. The US earnings season is in full swing and first reports from US megatech companies will start rolling in today. Microsoft and Alphabet will report after the close of the US session. Apart from those 2, a number of other big US companies are also scheduled to report today, either before or after the session.

3:00 pm BST - US, new home sales for June. Expected: 665k. Previous: 696k

3:00 pm BST - US, Richmond manufacturing index for July. Expected: -17. Previous: -19

3:00 pm BST - US, Conference Board consumer confidence for July. Expected: 97.3. Previous: 98.7

9:40 pm BST - API report on US oil inventories. Expected: +0.4 mb. Previous: +1.86 mb

Top Wall Street earnings

• 3M (MMM.US) - before market open

• Alphabet (GOOGL.US) - after market close

• Archer Daniels Midland (ADM.US) - before market open

• Coca-Cola (KO.US) - before market open

• General Electric (GE.US) - before market open

• General Motors (GM.US) - before market open

• Microsoft (MSFT.US) - after market close

• McDonald's Corporation (MCD.US) - before market open

• Raytheon Technologies (RTX.US) - before market open

• United Parcel Services (UPS.US) - before market open

• Visa (V.US) - after market close