The White House sought to dial back rising tension with China over U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s expected visit to Taiwan today, insisting the trip doesn’t signal a change in U.S. posture toward the island and urging Beijing to refrain from an aggressive response.

Meanwhile, stock benchmarks in Europe are in the negative zone as of 12:30 p.m. CET, with the United Kingdom house price report and BP's second-quarter results in focus.

At the time of writing, the German DAX contracted by 1.01% as Zalando (ZAL.DE) fell by 5.60% and led the losses. The British FTSE 100 was 0.30% down at the time of writing with Fresnillo (FRES.L) dropping 2.25%. The French CAC 40 declined 0.80% with its worst performer ArcelorMittal (ARRD.DE) losing 2.24%. The UK foreign secretary, the front-runner in the PM race with Rishi Sunak to succeed Boris Johnson, said late Monday that he’ll align the pay of public sector workers to living costs in the regions where they live, slash holiday allowances and cut diversity officers in the civil service.

British oil and gas company BP plc (BP) reported that its Q2’s net profit was $8.5 billion, the highest in 14 years. The company revealed that profit for the Q2 2022 attributable to shareholders came in at $9.3 billion. The result is apparently much better than the $3.1 billion in last year's Q2.

Asian-Pacific markets traded mostly lower earlier today amid the current earnings season and the latest interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia (more below). Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped by 0.03%, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 ended the day almost flat. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite declined 2.26% at the close At the same time, the Shenzhen Composite fell 3.59%. On the other hand, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 2.36%.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revealed earlier today it decided to raise interest rates in September, adjusting its monetary policy setting by 50 basis points. The central bank's targets for the cash rate, as well as the interest rate on Exchange Settlement balances, will be increased by 50 bp to stand at 1.85% and 1.75%, respectively.