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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high on rate trek bets

Gold consistent near record peak

By Amanda Cooper

LONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) -

U.S. stock futures steadied on Friday ahead of U.S. payrolls data, with financiers meticulously positive that the world might prevent a full-on trade war, while the prospect of more rate walkings 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 been wary of making any significant relocations, offered that he followed through on his threat to impose tasks on China while approving Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

The critical U.S. tasks report for wiki.rrtn.org January is due ahead of the Wall Street open. Economists expect to see 170,000 employees contributed to nonfarm payrolls last month, but offered the potential distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, the series of is wide.

"The focus for the monetary markets in current weeks has been quite on Trump and his financial policies, in specific on trade, however today there is the capacity for the jobs information to influence Fed rate expectations," Derek Halpenny, a currency strategist at MUFG, said.

"A pretty big divergence from the consensus is still most likely required to shift expectations notably however extreme weather condition at this time of the year has in the past resulted in sharply weaker NFP readings and weather condition might 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

slipped in 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 struck record highs earlier today, following a wave of strong revenues from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software company SAP and French lender BNP Paribas.

European stocks have actually staged their best efficiency in a years against Wall Street in the 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 attacked on the AI style in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's development.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's apparently measured reaction to Trump's tariffs has actually left space for asteroidsathome.net negotiations, experts state, which has assisted repair financier sentiment.

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

"Whilst there is substantial sound and uncertainty, we don't 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 fully 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 actually rallied 7% in 2015, greyhawkonline.com as investors priced in a far more aggressive policy stance from the Fed this year, where rate cuts may be rare.

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

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar overnight, bybio.co its greatest level since 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 actually dropped 0.5% on Thursday as the BoE cut rate of interest and slashed its 2025 UK growth forecast.

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

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