LONDON — European markets closed higher Friday, rounding off what's set to be a winning week for global stocks.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 index closed up 0.31%, to record a weekly gain of 2.4%. Autos stocks recorded the biggest sectoral gain, adding 1.06%, while oil and gas stocks lost 0.15%.
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.
That further signaled to investors that the jitters over a U.S. recession, which contributed to the sharp global sell-off at the start of the month, are overblown. Along with ripple effects from Japanese monetary policy, analysts say part of the volatility may be explained by a historical August trend, when trade tends to be more shallow.
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U.S. stocks hovered around the flatline in Friday morning trade.
The Stoxx 600 and Wall Street's S&P 500 remain shy of the levels they started the month at, but steady gains through the week have recuperated losses from the recent rout.
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.
Money Report
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.
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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 0.4% against the U.S. dollar at $1.2902 on Friday morning, its highest rate for more than three weeks. Sterling was also 0.2% higher against the euro.
Asia-Pacific stocks also followed the positive momentum from U.S. data to trade higher Friday.
