European stock futures mixed; U.S. holiday set to limit activity

investing.com:

Investing.com — European stock markets are expected to open largely unchanged Tuesday, with investors searching for cues given a light data calendar and a U.S. holiday.

At 02:00 ET (06:00 GMT), the DAX futures contract in Germany traded 0.1% higher, while CAC 40 futures in France dropped 0.1% and the FTSE 100 futures contract in the U.K. fell 0.2%.

The major European indices closed lower Monday after the release of disappointing June manufacturing activity data for the eurozone as a whole as persistent policy tightening by the European Central Bank hit hard.

The downturn was broad-based with surveys showing factory activity in all four of the region's biggest economies contracted last month.

There’s little data releasing Tuesday, with the exception of German export and import numbers for May. These showed the country's exports fell 0.1% on the month in May, while its imports grew 1.7%, resulting in a falling trade surplus of €14.4 (€1=$1.0898) billion, down from €16.5B the prior month.

Investors will also digest the latest salvo from China in the war between Beijing and the West over access to key high-tech microchips, with China announcing it will curb the exports of some metals widely used in the semiconductor industry.

The Wall Street Journal reported early Tuesday that the U.S. is also preparing to curb Chinese companies’ access to cloud computing services, including those of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).

Elsewhere, the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate at an 11-year high of 4.10% earlier Tuesday, seeking time to assess the impact of the 400 basis points of hikes since May last year.

However, Australia's central bank also warned that further tightening might be needed to bring inflation