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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, classicrock.awardspace.biz Feb 7 (Reuters) -

U.S. stock futures steadied on Friday ahead of U.S. payrolls information, with investors cautiously optimistic that the world may avoid a full-on trade war, while the prospect of more rate hikes 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, financiers have actually watched out for systemcheck-wiki.de making any major relocations, offered that he followed through on his hazard to on China while giving 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 provided the potential distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, the series of projections is large.

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

"A quite big divergence from the agreement is still likely needed to shift expectations especially but severe 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

slipped in premarket trading on the back of

weak point

in the retailer's cloud unit.

In Europe, the STOXX 600 headed for 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 incomes from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, bbarlock.com German software application company SAP and French lending institution BNP Paribas.

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

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's apparently measured response to Trump's tariffs has left space for settlements, analysts say, which has actually 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 escalating trade tensions as a 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 totally 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, as financiers priced in a far more aggressive policy position from the Fed this year, where rate cuts might be scarce.

Other main banks are cutting rates of interest, elearnportal.science while the Bank of Japan is tailoring up for at least another rate trek this year. Strong wage development data has actually intensified the possibilities 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 strongest 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 rate of interest and slashed its 2025 UK development forecast.

In products, oil edged up, while gold steadied above $2,800 an ounce, near 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)