By MICHELE MAATOUK LONDON—European stocks were expected to open largely unchanged Tuesday, as investors await further developments from Greece, which is due to offer more details on its austerity plans this week. The country's finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, told a German newspaper that the country is ready to introduce additional measures to shrink its budget deficit. Meanwhile, investors will be watching to see whether the country goes ahead with a long-awaited 10-year government bond issue, with which it hopes to raise between €3 billion ($4.07 billion) and €5 billion. Investors will also be looking ahead to central bank meetings on Thursday, with the European Central Bank and the Bank of England set to announce their latest rate decisions. "The ECB and BOE are unlikely to do anything materially different at this week's meetings," said Gareth Berry at UBS. "Sovereign fiscal pressures are restricting the ECB to a certain degree and BOE officials have signaled more quantitative easing could be in the cards, both of which are pressuring the domestic currencies." Investors, however, will be nervous about making directional plays ahead of these meetings, with the Reserve Bank of Australia raising its policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point earlier Tuesday. On the economic front, euro-zone producer price index and flash estimate consumer price index are due at 1000 GMT, while in the U.S., the Redbook Index will be released 1355 GMT. On Wall Street Monday, stocks closed higher, fueled by an uptick in manufacturing employment and personal spending that helped boost technology stocks. The broad rally sent two of the three U.S. large-cap stock indexes into positive territory for the year to date on Monday. Only the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which gained 78.53 points, or 0.8%, to close at 10,403.79, still shows a 0.2% loss for the year so far. The S&P 500 gained 11.22, or 1%, to 1115.71, posting its first year-to-date gain since Jan. 22. The Nasdaq Composite also crossed into positive territory, closing up 35.31, or 1.6%, to 2273.57. The Nasdaq had not been positive year-to-date since Jan. 21. In Asia, shares were mixed Tuesday, but stocks in Hong Kong lost ground after disappointing earnings results from HSBC. Australian shares also struggled to make much headway, with the fourth interest-rate increase in five meetings by the nation's central bank doing little to inspire buyers. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index and the Shanghai Composite both lost 0.5%, but the Nikkei 225 closed up 0.5%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.3%. In the foreign-exchange markets, the euro lost ground against the dollar on continued concerns over sovereign debt, while the pound was under pressure amid political uncertainty ahead of the U.K. general election. In recent trading, the euro was at $1.3518 from $1.3556 in New York late Monday, while the pound was trading at $1.4883 from $1.4890, following a sharp drop against the dollar Monday. In commodities, spot gold was trading at $1115.70 per troy ounce, down $3 from the New York close, while the front-month April Nymex crude oil futures contract was just 14 cents lower at $78.56 per barrel. Elsewhere, the European government bond markets were slightly higher, with the March bund futures contract up 0.01 at 124.34.

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