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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high up on rate hike bets

Gold steady near record peak

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) -

U.S. stock futures steadied on Friday ahead of U.S. payrolls data, with investors meticulously optimistic that the world might avoid a full-on trade war, while the prospect of more in Japan this year briefly sent the yen towards two-month highs.

In a week that started with U.S. President Donald Trump starting a trade war and whipping up market volatility, investors have actually been careful of making any major relocations, considered that he followed through on his risk to enforce tasks on China while granting Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

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

"The focus for the monetary markets in recent weeks has actually been quite on Trump and his economic policies, in particular on trade, but today there is the potential for the jobs data to affect Fed rate expectations," Derek Halpenny, a currency strategist at MUFG, setiathome.berkeley.edu said.

"A quite large divergence from the consensus is still likely needed to move expectations significantly however severe weather at this time of the year has in the past resulted in dramatically weaker NFP readings and weather condition could affect today ´ s report," he said.

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

Amazon

slipped in premarket trading on the back of

weakness

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 hit record highs earlier this week, following a spate of strong profits from the likes of Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software business SAP and French lending institution BNP Paribas.

European stocks have staged their finest efficiency in a decade against Wall Street in the very 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 actually pounced on the AI theme in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's development.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's seemingly determined response to Trump's tariffs has actually left room for settlements, analysts say, bbarlock.com which has helped repair financier belief.

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

"Whilst there is significant sound and uncertainty, we do not see intensifying trade tensions as a video game changer in the potential customers for the Chinese market," said James Cook, investment director for emerging markets at Federated Hermes.

Markets are pricing in 43 basis points of alleviating this year from the Fed, with a rate cut in July fully priced in, as policymakers remain in no hurry to begin the rate-cutting cycle again.

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

Other main banks are cutting interest rates, while the Bank of Japan is tailoring up for a minimum of another rate hike this year. Strong wage development information has actually beefed up the opportunities of tighter financial policy, which has pressed the yen to two-month highs against the dollar.

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar over night, wiki.asexuality.org its strongest level since December 10, before alleviating 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 rate of interest and slashed its 2025 UK growth projection.

In commodities, oil edged up, while gold steadied above $2,800 an ounce, near tape-record highs.

(Additional reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore; extra reporting by Stephen Culp, Marc Jones and Alun John; editing by Shri Navaratnam, Sam Holmes, Gareth Jones and fishtanklive.wiki Angus MacSwan)