European stock indices ended trading in the red for the sixth consecutive session on Wednesday amid investors’ worries about further economic growth and higher interest rates around the world. Why are European stock markets falling?

Traders are awaiting the publication of data on U.S. consumer price changes in September, which may indicate how effectively the U.S. Federal Reserve’s (Fed) tightening policy is working. The Labor Department’s report will be released Thursday and analysts expect U.S. inflation to slow to an annualized rate of 8.1% last month from 8.3% in August, according to Trading Economics.

Why are European stock markets falling? U.K. GDP fell 0.3% month on month in August after rebounding 0.1% in July, the country’s statistics agency ONS said. Experts on average expected that the volume of the economy in the month before last will not change compared to July, according to Trading Economics. In annual terms, GDP growth in Britain slowed to 2% from 3.1% in July.

Industrial production in Britain fell 1.8% in August compared to July after falling 1.1% a month earlier, the ONS report also said. At the same time, manufacturing output fell 1.6%, mining output fell 8.2%, and power generation output fell 0.6%. On an annualized basis, industrial production in the country fell 5.2% in August, down from a 3.2% decline a month earlier. This also affects European stock markets futures.

Britain’s trade deficit widened to 7.1 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) the month before last from 5.4 billion pounds in July. Imports increased by 4.3% month-on-month to a record 75.3 billion pounds; exports – by 2.2% to 68.2 billion pounds.

Earlier we reported that the US stock indices fell by 0.1-0.3%.