European stocks jumped on Friday. Despite the rate hike of European Central Bank (ECB) by 25 basis points to 4.5% which is 10th consecutive rise, many European indices have been rising since the opening of Friday but mostly closed under those high.
The Euro Stoxx 50 index has been rising over 1% to 4,300 again since earlier this month. The index previously was around 4,200 level through the week, compared to this year’s peak over 4,400 in July 2023 and 2007 peak before the financial crisis.
During the day, there’s some published data that supports the positive outlook such as a cooling down of Q2 wage growth of Eurozone to 4.6% YoY, down from the revised 4.9% in the last quarter. But it suggests the real income is declining as the inflation is higher at 6.2%.
The Euro Area also recorded a trade surplus at EUR 6.5 billion in July, switching back from EUR 36.3 billion gap of last year July. However, this year YTD balance is at surplus EUR 2.7 billion, better than a deficit EUR 188.1 billion of the calculation last year, hinting a better recovery than last year.
