BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/PARIS (dpa-AFX) - European stocks rebounded on Friday after the U.S. and China scheduled fresh trade talks next week and a private survey showed growth in the Chinese service sector accelerated to a six-month high in December, helping ease global growth worries.
Chinese slowing growth is having an impact on Apple and other American companies, but sales should recover once Washington strikes a trade deal with Beijing, a senior White House adviser said.
Closer home, a gauge of Eurozone business activity hit its weakest level in nearly five-and-a-half years in December, while another gauge of U.K. house price inflation slowed sharply in the month to its weakest level since early 2013.
The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 1.25 percent at 338.11 in opening deals after declining 1 percent on Thursday.
The German DAX was rallying 1.7 percent, France's CAC 40 index was climbing 1.3 percent and the U.K.s FTSE 100 was up 1.1 percent.
Johnson Service Group rallied 2.4 percent in London after the company reported FY results in line with market expectations.
Daimler advanced 3.1 percent in Frankfurt. The automaker announced that it sold considerably more than 500,000 trucks of its Mercedes-Benz, FUSO, Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses and BharatBenz brands in 2018 compared to 470,700 vehicles last year.
Rival Volkswagen rose 2.4 percent. The company sold a total of 354,064 cars in the U.S. in 2018, up 4.2 percent over last year, boosted by popular SUVs Tiguan and Atlas.
Nicox SA soared 19 percent in Paris. The company said that its partner has received approval in Canada of VYZULTA (latanoprostene bunod ophthalmic solution).
Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX
© 2019 AFX News
