European Shares May Struggle For Direction In Thin Holiday Trade

(RTTNews) - European stocks look set to open on a flat note Monday, with most markets closed for New Year holidays.

Asian markets traded mixed in thin holiday trade, with benchmark indexes in South Korea and Indonesia trading slightly lower while India's Sensex was seeing a modest gain.

U.S. stock markets will remain closed later today in observance of the New Year's Day holiday.

Growth worries persist as a report showed that Chinese manufacturing contracted at the sharpest pace in almost three years in December.

A third of the global economy will experience recession in 2023, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Sunday.

U.S. employment data, reports on manufacturing and service sector activity along with minutes from the latest meeting of the Federal Reserve would be in focus this week as the U.S. central bank battles inflation.

Investors also await cues from U.S. corporate earnings, which will start flowing in around the middle of the month.

U.S. stocks ended slightly lower on Friday to book their worst annual losses since 2008 amid worries about the economic and corporate earnings outlook.

The Dow slipped 0.2 percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite eased 0.1 percent and the S&P 500 shed 0.3 percent as data showed contraction in Chicago-area business activity eased in December. European stocks ended the final session of Year 2022 on a very weak note Friday on fears about a recession and surging COVID cases in China.

The pan European STOXX 600 fell 1.3 percent and logged its worst performance since 2018.

The German DAX lost 1.1 percent, France's CAC 40 tumbled 1.5 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 dropped 0.8 percent.