European equities edged higher in early trade on Friday, as trade and the economy remained in focus.
The pan-European Stoxx 600 was 0.3% higher by 9:43 a.m. in London (4:43 a.m. ET), with most sectors in positive territory.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who made a state visit to the U.K. this week, is expected to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a call on Friday. It comes after U.S. and Chinese negotiators reached a framework deal on TikTok’s U.S. business at talks in Madrid, Spain, this week.
Regional shares ended Thursday’s session higher, putting the Stoxx 600 index on course to end the week unchanged.
Looking at individual European stocks, shares of Maersk — a bellwether for global trade — shed 4.6%, while logistics firm Kuehne + Nagel was 7% lower.
The moves came ahead of Trump’s call with Xi, which is set to take place a day after Canada and Mexico vowed to deepen bilateral trade ties. Both countries are grappling with the White House’s punitive tariffs on their goods.
Meanwhile, hopes of the U.K. lowering tariffs on its steel and aluminum tariffs were dashed when no talk of a breakthrough came out of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s meeting with Trump on Thursday.
It was also reported on Thursday that the U.S. Supreme Court had scheduled a Nov. 5 hearing to hear the Trump administration’s arguments on why its tariffs regime should be permitted to remain in place. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that most of the president’s tariffs were illegal.
At the other end of the index, German auto parts manufacturer Continental surged 32.4% higher in Friday morning trade.
Continental share price
On Thursday, the company’s newly spun-off automotive division began trading in Frankfurt as Aumovio, with shares of the new firm extending gains on Friday with a jump of 5%.
“We have a very disruptive environment, so we need to see of how do we react very quickly to the different demands in the market, and that’s why it’s significantly better to have focused companies dealing with their respective challenges,” Philipp von Hirschheydt, CEO of Aumovio, told CNBC on Thursday.
Despite the move, Deutsche Bank slashed its target price for Continental by 21% on Friday morning.
“Factoring in the spin-off, modest forecast revisions, and higher peer multiples for ContiTech, we revise our target price to EUR63 [$74],” Deutsche Bank’s Christoph Laskawi said in a note. “Thanks to a strong first trading day of RemainCo, there is only about 10% upside left to our target price and hence we confirm our Hold rating.”
On the data front, trader will be watching German PPI data, a U.K. retail sales print and a French business confidence update on Friday.
In the U.K., data out Friday showed that government borrowing surged in recent months, with public sector rising by £11.4 billion ($15.4 billion) more than projected between April and August. It marked the second-highest public sector borrowing for that period since records began in 1993, with only 2020 — the height of the Covid-19 pandemic — notching a higher April to August borrowing bill.
U.K. government borrowing costs rose in the wake of the data release, with the yield on longer-maturity 20 and 30-year gilts adding 4 and 5 basis points, respectively.
Overnight in Asia, stocks traded mostly higher, with investors reacting to the Bank of Japan making no changes to interest rates. On Wall Street, U.S. stock futures were flat after the major averages hit fresh all-time highs on Thursday.
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