On Thursday, Europe’s STOXX 600 index plunged, led by a fall in shares of Swedish group H&M after dismal earnings, with investors awaiting German inflation data for clues on interest rate hikes by the European Central Bank (ECB).

The STOXX 600 index was down 1.1 per cent by 0708 GMT, failing to track a 2 per cent rise on Wall Street overnight and as the boost provided by the Bank of England’s emergency bond-buying move vanished.
H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, declined 6.9 per cent after it reported a significant fall in its third-quarter pretax profit amid cost inflation, declining consumer spending and one-off expenses related to its exit from Russia.

The wider STOXX retailers index declined 4.1 per cent, most among all the sectoral indexes. Germany’s DAX index dropped 0.9 per cent ahead of a preliminary reading on the country’s inflation data due later in the day. To make them comparable with inflation data from other European Union countries (HICP), consumer prices are expected to increase by 10 per cent in September, following an 8.8 per cent jump in August.

The hot inflation figure would come at a time when several ECB policymakers are backing another large rate hike in October to fight surging price pressures.