* Stock slip after Citi results, raft of earnings pending
* Dollar stronger after weak European data
* Wall Street set to open lower
By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent
LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - World stocks slipped on Tuesday
and Wall Street looked set for losses with uninspiring earnings
from Citigroup <C.N> keeping a bearish mood in place.
Investors are facing a wave of U.S. company earnings reports
this week, hoping to get a steer on how well the micro side of
the global economic recovery is faring.
In Europe, German analyst and investor sentiment fell more
than expected in January with the ZEW economic sentiment index
dropping to 47.2 in January from 50.4 in December, below
forecasts for a fall to 49.5. []
Inflation concerns also rose in Britain after UK data showed
consumer price inflation leapt to 2.9 percent in December from
1.9 percent in November. []
U.S. markets were returning from their Martin Luther King
holiday to face myriad earnings reports over the next few days.
Citigroup <C.N> posted a $7.6 billion fourth-quarter loss
after taking charges linked to repaying government funds. It was
in line with expectations. []
MSCI's all-country world stock index <MIWD00000PUS> was down
around 0.4 percent. Europe's pan-European FTSEurofirst 300
<> dropped 0.1 percent.
Earlier, Japan's Nikkei <> closed down 0.8 percent.
IBM <IBM.N> was set to announce results later, while Bank of
America <BAC.N> and Morgan Stanley <MS.N> numbers are due on
Wednesday. American Express <AXP.N>, Goldman Sachs <GS.N> and
Google <GOOG.O> results are expected on Thursday and General
Electric <GE.N> figures are due on Friday.
"There's a feeling that Q4 2009 or the first quarter of 2010
might be as good as it gets," said Jeremy Batstone-Carr,
strategist at Charles Stanley.
The U.S. earnings season has disappointed equity investors
so far, perhaps because year-on-year expectations were so high
given the weakness of Q4 2008.
Markets, for example, were negative last week on JPMorgan
<JPM.N>, the first major bank to report quarterly results,
because of heavy losses on mortgage and credit card loans.
This was despite its quarterly profit soaring to $3.3
billion, topping Wall Street expectations.
DOLLAR CLIMBS
The dollar climbed against a basket of currencies, with the
euro hit by both the ZEW figures and ongoing concerns about
Greece's fiscal woes.
Greece's ballooning budget deficit and debt of more than 120
percent of GDP has triggered downgrades by debt rating agencies
and hurt the euro in the past few months.
The euro was down 0.7 percent at $1.4285 <EUR=> and the
dolar gained 0.15 percent to 90.87 Japanese yen.
Euro zone government bond futures turned negative on after
earlier touching 4-week highs, tracking British gilt prices
which tumbled on the unexpectedly strong UK inflation data.
(Additional reporting by Brian Gorman, editing by Mike Peacock)
