European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high up on rate hike bets

Gold steady near record peak

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) -

U.S. stock futures steadied on Friday ahead of U.S. payrolls data, with investors cautiously optimistic that the world may prevent a full-on trade war, while the prospect of more rate hikes in Japan this year briefly sent out 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, investors have actually been careful of making any major relocations, considered that he followed through on his risk to impose duties on China while approving Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

The necessary U.S. tasks report for January is due ahead of the Wall Street open. Economists expect to see 170,000 workers included to nonfarm payrolls last month, but provided the prospective distortions from spells of cold weather condition and the California wildfires, the range of forecasts is large.

"The focus for the financial markets in current weeks has been really much on Trump and his economic policies, in particular on trade, however today there is the capacity for the tasks information to influence Fed rate expectations,” Derek Halpenny, a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

"A quite large divergence from the agreement is still likely needed to move expectations especially however extreme weather condition at this time of the year has in the past led to dramatically weaker NFP readings and weather condition could impact 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 unit.

In Europe, the STOXX 600 headed for a seventh straight week of gains, trading flat on the day after having hit record highs earlier today, following a wave of strong profits from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, larsaluarna.se German software application company SAP and French loan provider BNP Paribas.

European stocks have actually 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, sciencewiki.science tech stocks staged a rally, powered by Chinese retail investors, championsleage.review who have actually pounced on the AI theme in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek’s advancement.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing’s relatively determined response to Trump’s tariffs has left room for settlements, experts 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 substantial noise and uncertainty, we do not see intensifying trade tensions as a video 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 hurry to begin the rate-cutting cycle again.

The dollar edged up 0.1% against a basket of currencies, having actually rallied 7% in 2015, as investors priced in a far more aggressive policy stance from the Fed this year, where rate cuts may be few and far between.

Other main banks are cutting interest rates, while the Bank of Japan is tailoring up for a minimum of another rate trek this year. Strong wage growth data has boosted the of tighter monetary policy, which has actually pushed the yen to two-month highs against the dollar.

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar over night, its strongest level since December 10, before relieving 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 actually dropped 0.5% on Thursday as the BoE cut interest rates and slashed its 2025 UK growth forecast.

In commodities, oil edged up, while gold steadied above $2,800 an ounce, near tape-record highs.

(Additional reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore