A balcony above a trading floor inside the Euronext NV stock exchange in Paris, France, on Monday, March 13, 2023.
Nathan Laine | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON — European markets opened higher Friday, rounding off what’s set to be a winning week for global stocks.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.3% at 8:10 a.m. London time, led by autos stocks, up 1.2%.
The regional benchmark is up more than 2% so far this week, putting it on course for its best performance since May 10.
U.S. stocks have also posted solid gains, with a big boost coming Thursday when weekly jobless claims fell and U.S. retail sales data was much stronger than forecasts had suggested.
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On the data front on Friday, U.K. retail sales showed a rebound from a 0.9% decline in June to 0.5% growth in July, in line with expectations in a Reuters poll. Sales volumes were up 1.1% in the three months to July.
Alex Kerr, U.K. economist at Capital Economics, said in a note Friday that the retail uptick was not broad-based, with sectors such as food, clothing and household goods struggling.
“We continue to think that rising real incomes, as inflation falls, should mean consumer spending growth accelerates over the rest of this year,” Kerr said.
It comes after U.K. inflation showed an uptick to 2.2% in July, a lower increase than expected, while the economy recorded 0.6% expansion in the second quarter.
The British pound was up 0.24% against the U.S. dollar at $1.288 on Friday morning, its highest rate for two weeks. Sterling was also slightly higher against the euro.
Asia-Pacific stocks also followed the positive momentum from U.S. data to trade higher Friday.
