Markets should hesitate ahead of the Fed and after the US Congress vote on the debt ceiling. The Eurostoxx 50 opens at 4,144.51 points (-0.92%), the CAC 40 at 6,895.31 points (-0.69%), the DAX 40 at 15,453.56 points (-1.08% ), the FTSE 100 at 7,218.64 points (-0.18%), the SMI at 12,411.58 points (-1.11%), the AEX at 775.75 points (-0.93%), the BEL 20 at 4,121.78 points (-0.57%), IBEX 35 at 8,378.50 points (+0.67%), DJIA at 35,544.18 points (-0.30%), Nasdaq at 15,237.64 points (-1.14%), the S&P 500 at 4,634.09 points (-0.75%) and the Nikkei 225 at 28,459.72 points (+0.10%).

Regarding exchange rates, the change from the close in New York indicates that EUR/USD opens at 1.1271 (+0.09%), EUR/JPY at 128.16 (+0.16%) and USD/JPY at 113.73 (-0.03%).

On the eve of monetary policy announcements from the European Central Bank (ECB), investors will be attentive on Wednesday to the final figures for inflation in France in November. The first estimate from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), published on 30 November, reported a 2.8% increase over one year in consumer prices last month, after an increase 2.6% in October.

European equity markets are expected to be little changed at the open on Wednesday, with investors welcoming Congress's vote on raising the US debt ceiling while nervously awaiting monetary policy announcements from the Federal Reserve (Fed), expected at 8:00 p.m. (Paris time). At 7:40 a.m., the CAC 40 futures contract was up 7 points, or 0.1%, according to data from broker IG Markets. The contract on the DAX 40 took 25 points, or 0.2%. In contrast, the FTSE 100 contract was down 13 points, or 0.2%.

With continued caution ahead of Fed announcements, Wall Street closed lower on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Index (DJIA) ended down 0.3% to 35,544 points and the S&P 500 index fell 0.8% to 4,634.09 points. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.1% to 15,237.64 points. In Asia, the main stock exchanges hesitated on Wednesday. In Tokyo, the Nikkei index ended up 0.1%, while the Hang Seng fell 0.4% at the end of the session in Hong Kong. The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.2%, despite the announcement of an acceleration in the growth of industrial production in China in November, to 3.8% against 3.5% in October. In the bond market, if the Fed responds to investor expectations and picks up the pace of tapering, it will need to determine more quickly than originally expected what to do with its $8.7 trillion balance sheet once it ends its bond purchases, which led to a sharp increase in central bank assets.

The euro is moving higher against the dollar on Wednesday morning as traders await announcements from the Federal Reserve. Investors will be watching the Fed's monetary policy committee's updated economic forecasts and dot plots closely for clues about the pace of the U.S. central bank's interest rate hike next year, Commerzbank said. emphasizing that the market is primarily looking to determine the extent of the Fed's restrictive turn.

Oil prices fell on Wednesday morning, in response to the warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA) about the impact of the Omicron variant on demand. This new strain of the coronavirus should weigh on demand, estimates the IEA, which has therefore revised downwards its forecasts for black gold supply and demand in 2022. At 7:30 a.m., the February contract on Brent North Sea oil yielded 74 cents, at 72.96 dollars a barrel. The January contract on Nymex-listed light sweet crude (WTI) fell 84 cents to $69.89 a barrel.