After a black Tuesday on Wall Street, European stock markets are expected to open lower. The Eurostoxx 50 at 3,586.18 points (-1.65%), the CAC 40 at 6,245.69 points (-1.39%), the DAX 40 at 13,188.95 points (-1.59%), the FTSE 100 at 7,385.86 points (-1.17%), the SMI at 10.990.75 points (-0.83%), the DJIA at 31,104.97 points (-3.94%), the Nasdaq at 11,633.57 points (-5.16%), the S&P 500 at 3,932.69 points (-4.32%) and the Nikkei 225 at 27,821.87 points (-2.77%).

In terms of exchange rates, the change from the close in New York shows EUR/USD at 0.9995 (+0.28%), EUR/JPY at 143.78 (-0.22%), USD/JPY at 143.86 (-0.49%).

The energy crisis will continue to take center stage Wednesday in France, where Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will hold a press conference on the subject in the afternoon. The CEO of EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy, will also be heard by the Economic Affairs Commission of the French National Assembly on the state of the nuclear fleet in France. For its part, Essilor Luxottica is organizing an investor day in Milan and Vinci will present, after the stock exchange, the traffic figures of its subsidiaries Vinci Autoroutes and Vinci Airport in August.

European equity markets are expected to open lower on Wednesday, following Wall Street's plunge the day before, following the publication of higher than expected inflation in August in the United States. At 7:35 a.m., the CAC 40 futures contract was down 33 points, or 0.5%, according to data from broker IG Markets. The DAX contract was giving up 89 points, or 0.7 percent, and the FTSE 100 was down 53 points, also 0.7 percent.

Wall Street posted its worst session since June 2020 on Tuesday, as investors feared a sharp monetary tightening in the U.S. in response to persistently high inflation last month. Signing its biggest drop since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Dow Jones index lost 1,276 points, or 3.9%, to 31,104.97 points. The S&P 500 gave up 4.3%, to 3,932.69 points. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.2% to 11,633.57 points.

U.S. consumer prices rose 8.3% year-over-year in August, following an 8.5% increase in July, the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday. This rate of inflation is higher than the forecasts of the economists questioned by the Wall Street Journal, who expected it to 8%. The core index, which excludes food and energy prices, rose by 0.6% in a month, while economists were expecting a rise of only 0.3%. This release reinforces the scenario of a sharp increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve (Fed) at its meeting next week. Rates on two-year and 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds rose Tuesday in anticipation of at least a 75 basis point increase in key rates.

On the corporate side, Twitter will once again be in the spotlight, as its shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favor of Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover bid to delist the social network. As the Tesla CEO seeks to disengage from the deal he signed in the spring with Twitter's board of directors, the shareholder vote pushed the group's stock up 0.6% Tuesday in New York, in a sharply falling market. In the wake of the U.S. stock markets, Asian markets are showing sharp declines on Tuesday. At the end of the session, the Nikkei index lost 2.7% in Tokyo, the Hang Seng lost 2.6% in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite fell by 1.2%.

U.S. Treasury bond prices fell sharply on Tuesday after news of higher-than-expected inflation in the U.S. drove the yield on the 10-year note near its 2022 highs. The yield on the two-year bond hit a new high in nearly 15 years. On Wednesday morning, the yield on the 10-year note continued to rise, settling at 3.419% from 3.415% on Tuesday night. The yield on the two-year note was 3.759%, up from 3.745%.

The dollar fell back on Wednesday morning, especially against the euro, after gaining ground the day before. The WSJ Dollar Index, which measures the dollar's movement against a basket of currencies, recorded its biggest gain since March 2020 on Tuesday. It closed at 101.68, just one-hundredth of a point below the 20-year high reached on September 6. According to Nomura, the Fed is expected to raise rates by one percentage point after its meeting next week. "The August consumer price report [...] suggests that several inflationary risks may be materializing. Although the Fed did not raise rates by 100 basis points in July, contrary to our expectations, we believe that the recent data will prompt central bankers to reconsider the pace of rate hikes, in light of the Fed's commitment to take indicators into account," the Japanese bank said.

Oil prices retreated Wednesday morning, still affected by the higher than expected figures of U.S. inflation. According to Commerzbank, if the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns, in its monthly report expected this Wednesday, against a risk of oversupply of the oil market, "sentiment could turn around again and the market could look to see if OPEC+ is really willing to support high prices by cutting production." At 7:25 a.m., the November North Sea Brent contract was down 52 cents at $92.65 a barrel, while October WTI was down 55 cents at $86.76 a barrel.