European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high on rate hike bets

Gold stable near record peak

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) -

U.S. stock futures steadied on Friday ahead of U.S. payrolls information, with investors very carefully optimistic that the world may avoid a full-on trade war, while the possibility of more rate walkings in Japan this year briefly sent out the yen towards two-month highs.

In a week that began with U.S. President Donald Trump beginning a trade war and whipping up market volatility, have watched out for making any significant moves, provided that he followed through on his danger to impose tasks on China while giving Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

The all-important U.S. tasks report for January is due ahead of the Wall Street open. Economists anticipate to see 170,000 employees contributed to nonfarm payrolls last month, but provided the potential distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, classifieds.ocala-news.com the variety of projections is broad.

“The focus for the financial markets in recent weeks has been quite on Trump and his financial policies, in specific on trade, however today there is the potential for the jobs data to influence Fed rate expectations,” Derek Halpenny, oke.zone a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

“A pretty big divergence from the consensus is still most likely needed to shift expectations notably however extreme weather condition at this time of the year has in the past led to greatly weaker NFP readings and weather might impact today ´ s report,” he said.

Futures on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were trading mainly stable on the day, while shares of

Amazon

insinuated premarket trading on the back of

weak point

in the retailer’s cloud system.

In Europe, the STOXX 600 headed for a seventh straight week of gains, trading flat on the day after having actually struck record highs previously this week, following a wave of strong profits from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software business SAP and French lender BNP Paribas.

European stocks have staged their finest performance in a decade against Wall Street in the first 6 weeks of 2025, however the focus is now on whether those gains can be sustained.

On the Asian market, tech stocks staged a rally, powered by Chinese retail investors, who have struck on the AI theme in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek’s advancement.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing’s seemingly determined action to Trump’s tariffs has actually left room for negotiations, analysts say, which has helped repair investor sentiment.

China’s blue-chip stock index closed up 1.3% after touching a one-month high.

“Whilst there is considerable noise and uncertainty, we don’t see escalating trade tensions as a game changer in the prospects for the Chinese market,” said James Cook, financial investment director for emerging markets at Federated Hermes.

Markets are pricing in 43 basis points of relieving this year from the Fed, with a rate cut in July totally priced in, as policymakers remain in no rush to start the rate-cutting cycle again.

The dollar edged up 0.1% against a basket of currencies, having actually rallied 7% in 2015, ai as investors priced in a far more aggressive policy position from the Fed this year, where rate cuts might be rare.

Other main banks are cutting rates of interest, while the Bank of Japan is tailoring up for at least another rate trek this year. Strong wage growth data has actually beefed up the possibilities of tighter monetary policy, which has pressed the yen to two-month highs against the dollar.

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar overnight, its greatest level given that December 10, before relieving to leave the dollar up 0.4% on the day at 152.155.

Sterling reversed earlier losses to increase 0.1% to $1.2449, having actually dropped 0.5% on Thursday as the BoE cut rates of interest and slashed its 2025 UK development forecast.

In commodities, oil edged up, while gold steadied above $2,800 an ounce, close to tape highs.

(Additional reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore