European stock markets are set to open marginally higher today. Though today's primary focus is on the US inflation data due later in the session.

Investors are awaiting the publication of a significant U.S. inflation report, thus they expect the European stock markets to begin higher on Thursday.

The major European indexes are anticipated to maintain their upward trend from the previous session as the banking industry attempts to recover from the one-month lows it reached on Tuesday following the announcement of an Italian government windfall tax on its institutions.

Rome's administration promptly stated that the 40% tax would not exceed 0.1% of all assets, which helped to rebuild shaky investor confidence.

The latest U.S. inflation data release will be the primary event of the day.

The headline annual CPI number is anticipated to increase slightly in July to 3.3%, while the core rate—which does not include volatile food and energy prices—is anticipated to increase by 4.8% annually.

The Fed's officials will next convene in September, and a muted inflation report might reinforce investor expectations that they would decide to stop raising interest rates.

Ahead of important U.S. inflation data later in the day, oil prices increased somewhat on Thursday, staying close to multi-month highs.

The week ending August 4 saw an unexpected increase in U.S. stocks, according to statistics released on Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration, but there was also a considerably larger-than-expected drop in petrol and distillate stockpiles.

Despite a weak economic recovery in China, the world's top oil importer, this helped the crude market go higher.

(Sources: investing.com, reuters.com)