European stocks and US stock futures advance ahead of jobs data



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A stall selling Christmas specialties is seen in a pedestrian area in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district on December 3, 2020.

AFP via Getty Images

European stocks rose on Friday, alongside US equity futures, as investors waited to see if the latest US employment figures show the damage from the resurgence of the pandemic. Pharmaceuticals and energy companies led the gains.

The Stoxx Europe 600 SXXP index,
+ 0.24%
rose 0.2% after a nearly flat session on Thursday. The index gained 0.8% this week to kick off the final trading month of 2021. The FTSE 100 UK: UKX led regional indices with a gain of 0.7%, while the German DAX DAX,
-0.05%
was flat and the French CAC 40 PX1,
+ 0.34%
increased by 0.4%.

US equity futures rose. Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
+ 0.28%
closed higher and S&P 500 SPX,
-0.06%
finished lower, but both off intraday highs after Pfizer PFE,
-1.74%
said he expected to ship only half of the vaccines he planned to ship this year. The Nasdaq Composite COMP,
+ 0.22%
booked a new closing record.

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Investors are awaiting payroll data in the United States, which is expected to show job growth slowed in November amid a spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths in recent weeks. Economists polled by MarketWatch are forecasting an increase of 438,000, down from the gain of 638,000 seen the previous month.

In Europe, data from Germany showed manufacturing orders rose for the sixth consecutive month before a second lockdown.

The big oil companies were higher, with shares of Royal Dutch Shell RDSA,
+ 3.06%

RDS.A,
+ 0.87%
and BP BP,
+ 1.37%

BP,
+ 3.80%
up by 3% each, and Total TOT FR: FP up by around 2%. These gains came from the prices of CL.1 crude,
+ 1.46%

BRN00,
+ 1.41%
continued to rise after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies on Thursday agreed to a gradual increase in crude production from January, defying earlier expectations of an extension of current production cuts.

Leading the Stoxx 600 winners, Dassault Aviation AM actions,
+ 5.09%
climbed more than 6% after a report in the French weekly financial newspaper, La Tribune, that Indonesia could buy 48 Rafale fighter jets.

Shares of Associated British Foods ABF,
+ 3.21%
rose nearly 3% after the British conglomerate said store closures in the fall would likely cost it 430 million pounds ($ 578.4 million) in sales, but that it still expects that Primark’s full-year revenue and earnings exceed fiscal 2020 results.

HSE HSE,
+ 2.82%
stocks rose 4%. Energy company FTSE 100 said that Italian oil group ENI ENI,
+ 2.67%

E,
+ 0.49%
has agreed to acquire a 20% stake in the Dogger Bank A and B wind farm project owned by SSE and the Norwegian energy multinational Equinor EQNR,
-0.18%

EQNR,
+ 2.15%.

Also contributing to the gains of Stoxx 600, shares of heavily weighted drugmakers AstraZeneca AZN,
-1.14%

AZN,
+ 1.46%
and GlaxoSmithKline GSK,
-0.34%
increased by more than 2% each.

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