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European stocks head for 7th weekly gain

Yen at two-month high up on rate trek bets

Gold stable 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 might 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 began with U.S. President Donald Trump starting a trade war and whipping up market volatility, financiers have actually watched out for making any major moves, given that he followed through on his threat to enforce tasks on China while approving Mexico and Canada a one-month reprieve.

The critical U.S. jobs report for January is due ahead of the Wall Street open. Economists anticipate to see 170,000 employees contributed to nonfarm payrolls last month, but provided the possible distortions from spells of winter and the California wildfires, the variety of projections is wide.

"The focus for the monetary markets in recent weeks has actually been quite on Trump and his financial 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 big divergence from the agreement is still likely required to shift expectations especially but severe weather condition at this time of the year has in the past resulted in sharply weaker NFP readings and weather condition might affect today ´ s report," he said.

Futures on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were trading mainly steady on the day, while shares of

Amazon

insinuated premarket trading on the back of

weakness

in the retailer's cloud unit.

In Europe, king-wifi.win the STOXX 600 headed for a seventh straight week of gains, trading flat on the day after having actually hit record highs earlier this week, following a spate of strong earnings from the similarity Danish weight-loss drugmaker Novo Nordisk, German software application company SAP and French loan provider BNP Paribas.

European stocks have staged their best efficiency in a years 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, tech stocks staged a rally, powered by Chinese retail investors, who have actually struck on the AI style in the wake of home-grown start-up DeepSeek's development.

DELICATE CHINA

Beijing's relatively measured response to Trump's tariffs has left room for negotiations, experts state, gratisafhalen.be which has actually helped repair investor sentiment.

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

"Whilst there is significant noise and uncertainty, we do not see escalating trade stress 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 relieving this year from the Fed, with a rate cut in July fully 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 rallied 7% in 2015, as financiers priced in a much more aggressive policy stance from the Fed this year, where rate cuts might be scarce.

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

The yen touched 150.96 per dollar overnight, its greatest level given that December 10, before relieving 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 actually dropped 0.5% on Thursday as the BoE cut rate of interest and slashed its 2025 UK growth projection.

In commodities, 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; modifying by Shri Navaratnam, Sam Holmes, Gareth Jones and Angus MacSwan)