European stocks rose Friday, giving the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index its biggest weekly gain in a year. But the US jobs figures caused a small sell off, but the gains were still positive. The Stoxx 600 added 0.4% to take the week's gain to 4.1%, the biggest in almost 13 months. Indices rose in 15 of the 18 western European markets. London's FTSE 100 gained 1% Friday, while France's CAC 40 and Germany's DAX rose 0.3%.
It was the FTSE 100 Index's biggest weekly gain in five years, thanks mainly to talk of takeover activity around British Energy Group. The Index rose 4.5% last week, the largest rise since late March 2003 when the UK market was starting to come off the bottom.
In Asia, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell on Friday ending a two-day, 4.8% rally. The region-wide index rose 2.1% last week for its first back-to-back advance since December. The index is still down 8.3% this year though. Japan's Nikkei rose on Friday, and added 3.7% in value over the week.
A notable under performer was the Indian stockmarket which fell to a two week low. The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensex fell 3% on Friday and was down 2.6% over the week, the largest loss in a month as worries about food prices, inflation and corporate earnings affected sentiment. In Australia our market is looking for a solid gain today of around 40 points after the Share Price Index closed up 39 on Saturday morning. Traders ignored the slowing in the US markets after the jobs figures.
Banks were mostly lower as investors took a breather: the ANZ lost 58c to $23.56; NAB fell 82c to $31.10; Westpac shed 47c to $25.13. But the Commonwealth Bank rose 7c to end the day at $45.48. Macquarie fell $1.88 to $56.30, but it was still up 6.7% over the week.
Oil stocks were mixed, with Santos rising 30c to $15.15, but Oil Search lost 16c to $4.75 and Woodside Petroleum 60c to $56.04.
The July contract fell 0.5% last week, with all of that happening on Monday when the USDA estimated that farmers would boost plantings of wheat (and soybeans and cut corn plantings) to take advantage of near record prices for the gain. Crude oil rose more than $US2 a barrel on Friday thanks to the fall in the greenback. May crude futures rose $US2.40, or 2.3% to $US106.23 a barrel in New York, to take the price gain for the week to 0.6%. OPEC meets on April 20 and won't take any decisions that will influence prices.
According to Bloomberg, OPEC production fell 85,000 barrels a day to an average 32.35 million barrels a day in March, with Nigerian output down noticeably on technical and political factors.
