London — European stock markets retreated from 20-month highs and the dollar inched up on Wednesday as investors pondered the chances of another rise in US interest rates in June ahead of the Federal Reserve’s May statement. Since December, the US central bank has finally begun to deliver on the long-disappointed expectation of a steady rise in borrowing costs and an increase in official rates in June is now almost 60% priced in by markets. But US economic numbers in the past month have been less convincing, and the latest gains for global share prices look as much the product of an improving recovery in Europe as the US-based optimism that dominated the end of 2016. A surprise fall in iPhone sales in the first quarter and drops in vehicle sales for Ford and General Motors added to nerves about the durability of US growth in the absence of a boost from tax cuts or new public spending. Falls in the price of copper, iron ore and other metals also underlined growing nerves over China a...
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