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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high on rate hike bets

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 cautiously positive that the world might prevent a full-on trade war, while the possibility of more rate hikes in Japan this year briefly sent out the yen towards two-month highs.

In a week that began with U.S. President Donald Trump starting a trade war and whipping up market volatility, investors have actually watched out for setiathome.berkeley.edu making any major moves, considered that he followed through on his danger to enforce responsibilities on China while approving 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 added to nonfarm payrolls last month, but offered the prospective distortions from spells of cold weather and the California wildfires, the range of projections is wide.

"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 potential for the jobs data to affect Fed rate expectations," Derek Halpenny, a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

"A quite big divergence from the agreement is still likely needed to move expectations especially however extreme weather at this time of the year has in the past led to sharply weaker NFP readings and weather condition might 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

insinuated 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 struck record highs previously today, following a spate of strong profits from the likes of Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software company SAP and French lender BNP Paribas.

European stocks have staged their best performance in a years 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 caught the AI theme in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's development.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's relatively determined action to Trump's tariffs has actually left space for suvenir51.ru settlements, experts state, which has assisted repair investor belief.

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

"Whilst there is considerable noise and uncertainty, we do not see intensifying trade stress as a 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 easing this year from the Fed, with a rate cut in July completely priced in, as policymakers remain in no rush to begin the rate-cutting cycle again.

The dollar edged up 0.1% against a basket of currencies, having rallied 7% last year, setiathome.berkeley.edu as investors priced in a much more aggressive policy position from the Fed this year, where rate cuts might be few and asteroidsathome.net far between.

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 growth information has beefed up the possibilities 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, its strongest level given that 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 interest rates and slashed its 2025 UK growth projection.

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

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