(Reuters) – European shares on Friday extended losses to a fourth consecutive session, ahead of U.S. inflation data that could spur more speculation about the Federal Reserve’s policy decision next week.
All sectors were trading in red with banks weighing the most in the pan-European STOXX 600 index, which lost 0.7% by 0704 GMT, on course to end the week about 2% lower.
The U.S. Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index is expected to have accelerated to 0.7% last month from 0.3% in April. But when stripped of volatile food and energy products, it is seen cooling a nominal 0.1 percentage point to 0.5%.
The data is due at 1230 GMT on Friday, with growing bets that the U.S. Fed will increase beyond the two 50 bps hike it plans for next week and July.
This comes a day after equities were hammered following the European Central Bank’s clues that it would deliver next month its first interest rate hike since 2011, and a potentially larger move in September.
Among individual stocks, GSK jumped 2.4% after the drugmaker said its vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus was successful in a late-stage trial involving older adults.
(Reporting by Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
