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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high up on rate trek bets

Gold constant near record peak

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) -

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

In a week that began with U.S. President Donald Trump kicking off a trade war and whipping up market volatility, investors have actually watched out for making any major moves, considered that he followed through on his hazard to impose responsibilities on China while granting Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

The necessary U.S. tasks report for January is due ahead of the Wall Street open. Economists anticipate to see 170,000 employees included to nonfarm payrolls last month, however offered the prospective distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, the variety of is large.

"The focus for the financial markets in current weeks has actually been quite on Trump and his economic policies, in specific on trade, however today there is the capacity for the jobs information to influence Fed rate expectations," Derek Halpenny, a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

"A quite large divergence from the agreement is still likely required to shift expectations notably however extreme weather at this time of the year has in the past resulted in greatly weaker NFP readings and weather condition could impact today ´ s report," he said.

Futures on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were trading mainly steady 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 hit record highs previously this week, following a wave of strong earnings from the likes of Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software application company SAP and French lending institution BNP Paribas.

European stocks have actually staged their best efficiency in a years against Wall Street in the very first 6 weeks of 2025, wavedream.wiki but 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 caught the AI style in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's breakthrough.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's seemingly determined reaction to Trump's tariffs has left space for settlements, 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 significant sound and uncertainty, we do not see intensifying trade stress as a video 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 completely priced in, as policymakers remain in no hurry to start the rate-cutting cycle again.

The dollar edged up 0.1% against a basket of currencies, having actually rallied 7% last year, as investors priced in an even more aggressive policy stance from the Fed this year, where rate cuts may be scarce.

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

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar over night, its greatest level given that December 10, before reducing 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 dropped 0.5% on Thursday as the BoE cut rates of interest and slashed its 2025 UK development forecast.

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

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