Morning Bid: Range-bound markets await Powell again. Ankur Banerjee’s outlook for the upcoming day in the European and international markets As investors processed a barrage of remarks from central bank officials in search of clues as to whether the world’s interest rates had peaked, an unsettling quiet pervaded Asian trade, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell once again taking center stage.

Powell did not address monetary policy in his opening remarks at Wednesday’s U.S. Central Bank statistics conference. However, he is expected to appear on Thursday at another conference, where traders will closely observe his every word.

Philip Lane, the top economist at the European Central Bank, stated at a separate event on Wednesday that more significant progress in reducing inflationary pressure is required and that businesses and governments must work together to avoid further policy tightening.

On a different occasion, U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker affirmed that the Fed’s recent decision to maintain interest rates was appropriate and advised traders not to get ahead of themselves. “A decrease in the policy rate is not likely to happen in the short term,” he stated.

With a light economic calendar, any remarks made by Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill or ECB’s Lane, who both have speaking engagements scheduled for this Thursday, will likely impact the market. Futures suggest that European stock markets will open somewhat lower.

Investors will watch Novo Nordisk (NOVOb.CO), Europe’s most valuable firm after American and British authorities approved Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N) weight-loss medication Zepbound on Wednesday. The clearance opens the door for Wegovy, the blockbuster medicine, to face the issue of record obesity rates with a formidable competitor.

China’s real estate equities are once again gaining attention in Asia. They arose late on Wednesday, following news from Reuters that China’s State Council had directed the Guangdong province local government to assist in setting up a rescue of Country Garden by Ping An Insurance Group (601318. SS).

In a statement to Reuters, Ping An later claimed that the government had “not asked it to take over Country Garden.”Ping An shares continued to drop on Thursday. Property stocks, like Country Garden (2007. HK), lost some of their gains from the previous day.

According to statistics released on Thursday, China’s consumer prices declined, and factory-gate deflation continued in October. These findings suggest that demand pressure has increased as the country, the second-biggest in the world, battles to recover from the post-pandemic downturn.

In other news, Hollywood actors and major studios tentatively came to a deal on Wednesday to end the second of two strikes that have rocked the entertainment sector this year over demands for better compensation in the age of streaming television.

Significant developments that might affect Thursday’s markets include:

Profits: Deutsche Telekom, Merck KGaA, and AstraZeneca

Speakers include Fed Chair Powell later in the day and chief economists Philip Lane of the ECB and Huw Pill of the BOE at separate events.