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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high on rate trek 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 prevent a full-on trade war, while the possibility of more 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, investors have actually been wary of making any significant moves, considered that he followed through on his risk to impose tasks on China while granting 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 workers included to nonfarm payrolls last month, online-learning-initiative.org but given the prospective distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, the series of forecasts is broad.

"The focus for the financial markets in current weeks has actually been very much 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, a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

"A pretty big divergence from the consensus is still most likely required to move expectations especially but extreme weather at this time of the year has in the past led to sharply 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 pipewiki.org a seventh straight week of gains, trading flat on the day after having actually struck record highs earlier this week, following a spate of strong profits from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software business SAP and users.atw.hu French loan provider BNP Paribas.

European stocks have staged their finest performance in a decade against Wall Street in the first 6 weeks of 2025, 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 financiers, who have pounced on the AI theme in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's breakthrough.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's apparently measured reaction to Trump's tariffs has left room for settlements, experts say, which has assisted repair investor sentiment.

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

"Whilst there is significant noise and uncertainty, we do not see intensifying trade stress as a video game changer in the potential customers for the Chinese market," said James Cook, financial 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 start the rate-cutting cycle again.

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

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

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar over night, its greatest level since December 10, before alleviating to leave the dollar up 0.4% on the day at 152.155.

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

In products, oil edged up, while gold steadied above $2,800 an ounce, near to 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 wavedream.wiki Angus MacSwan)