Europe open: Central banks, trade negotiations in focus
Stocks have started the session slightly higher, ahead of a week brimming with key economic data in all jurisdictions and policy meetings at three of the world's main central banks, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and Bank of England.
Trade and politics were also on traders' minds, ahead of the European Union summit on Thursday which was expected to give the 'green light' to the start of trade negotiations between London and Brussels.
Ahead of those events, as of 0848 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was was up by 0.11% or 0.41 points to 389.66, alongside a rise of 0.16% or 21.60 points on the German Dax and a gain of 0.16% or 8.57 points to 5,407.66 for the Cac-40.
Commenting on the implications of that EU summit, Jim Reid at Deutsche Bank said: "Returning to Brexit, the EC meeting scheduled for Thursday and Friday will shed some light on how quickly we can get a transitional agreement for the UK and how contingent it is on talks over the future relationship. It is generally perceived that the UK needs this ASAP and before March at the very latest to ease the worries of businesses. So this week's meeting is important for the mood music."
Acting as a backdrop, at the weekend China's National Bureau of Statistics reported that consumer prices in the Asian giant fell short of expectations last month, with the rate of advance slipping from 1.9% in October to 1.7% for November (consensus: 1.8%).
At the factory gate level on the other hand, inflation was in-line with economists' forecasts, at 5.8% on the year in November, down from from 6.9% in October.
Also in the background, Fed funds futures had been creeping higher and as of Monday morning were discounting a 61.7% probability of two more 25 basis point interest rate hikes from the Fed in 2018.
The European economic calendar was light at the start of the week.
According to ISTAT, in volume terms Italian retail sales dropped by 1.1% month-on-month in October, undershooting forecasts for a dip of 0.1% by a wide margin.
As an aside, in an interview published on Sunday by Il Sole 24 Ore, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said Italy must carry out deeper reforms as regards its jobs market, financial sector and facing up to the overhang of bad loans.
In parallel, the French central bank's industrial sentiment gauge was unchanged in November at 106.
Later in the day, the Federal Reserve will publish its JOLTS job opening report for October. In the background, chief technical negotiators from the US, Canada and Mexico were due to meet later for discussions around NAFTA.
On the corporate side of things, La Repubblica reported that Unicredit was mulling a tie-up with a foreign rival in order to bulk up its footprint overseas.
November traffic statistics from Lufthansa were due to be published at 1200 GMT.