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A waitress serves a customer on the terrace of restaurant in Marseille, southeastern France, on October 5, 2020
nicolas tucat/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
European equities and U.S. stock futures traded higher on Friday, as investors kept hopes for an American stimulus deal alive, at the end of a positive week for markets.
The Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, +0.33% rose 0.4% and is up 1.5% for the week, with one more session to go. The German DAX DAX, +0.05% was flat, while the French CAC 40 PX1, +0.42% and FTSE 100 UKX, +0.37% rose 0.4% each.
U.S. stock futures ES00, +0.37% NQ00, +0.24% rose across the board , with Dow futures YM00, +0.36% up over 100 points. Major indexes closed higher on Thursday, on fading worries over a contested election outcome and hopes for over a stimulus package, even if it doesn´t arrive until after that battle for the White House.
President Donald Trump said Thursday that stimulus talks with Democrats have turned productive, following his decision just days earlier to call them off. Hours later, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she still wanted a big deal.
Elsewhere, a private gauge of China’s services-sector activity showed faster-than-expected growth in September. Mining shares, sensitive to news about China, a big consumer of natural resources, were higher. Shares of Anglo American UK:AALrose 2% and Fresnillo UK:FRES gained 2.2%.
Economic news was less positive for the U.K., where the economy grew just 2.1% in August, disappointing forecasts for growth of 4.6% and the slowest monthly gain since the initial coronavirus lockdowns. France reported a slowing pace of industrial production in August.
Rising oil prices were lifting shares of heavily-weighted oil companies. Oil prices CL.1, +0.34% BRN00, +0.32% finished higher Thursday as Hurricane Delta forced the shut-in of more than 90% of crude output in the Gulf of Mexico. Crude prices were steady on Friday.
Shares of Total TOT, +1.04%, Royal Dutch Shell RDSA, +1.67% and BP BP, +1.65% all rose more than 1%.
Semiconductor-related stocks were inspired after shares of NXP Semiconductors NXPI, +0.92% rallied late in the U.S. on Thursday. The chip maker lifted its outlook for the quarter.
And Advanced Micro Devices AMD, -0.20% is in advanced talks to buy rival chip maker Xilinx in a deal that could be worth more than $30 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
In Europe, shares of Infineon Technologies IFX, +1.77% rose 1.6% and those for Dialog Semiconductor DLG, +0.84% rose 1.6%.
Shares of Rolls-Royce Holdings RR, +16.25% were again rising, up 13%. Shares have gained 95% this week, but remain 67% lower year to date.
The London Stock Exchange LSE, +0.13% has agreed to sell its entire shareholdering in the parent company of Borsa Italia to Euronext ENX, -0.39% in a deal valued at 4.33 billion euros ($5.09 billion). LSE shares rose 0.8%, while Euronext stock rose 0.9%.
