Europe close: Stocks bounce back on trade hopes
Stocks on the Continent staged a partial come back on Thursday from the previous day's losses thanks to talk in markets that officials in both Beijing and Washington might be open to restarting trade talks.
Overnight, China's Minister of Commerce, Wang Shouwen, reportedly said the two countries should engage with each other to resolve their "trade problem".
According to Bloomberg, who cited a person familiar with the US administration's thinking, there was "some willingness" on the part of the White House to resume high-level talks.
By the end of the day, the benchmark Stoxx 600 had added 0.78% or 2.97 points to 384.37, alongside a rise of 0.61% or 75.84 points to 12,492.97 for the German Dax, while the Cac-40 was ahead by 0.97% or 51.97 points to 5,405.90.
In parallel, euro/dollar was up by 0.08% to 1.1684, alongside a 0.394% jump in Brent crude oil futures for September delivery to $73.69 a barrel.
Economic news out on the Continent was light on the ground, albeit slightly better-than-expected, with harmonised consumer prices in France printing at up by 2.3% year-on-year for the month of June, versus forecasts from economists calling for a rise of 2.3%.
Euro area industrial production for May meanwhile printed at up by 2.4% on the year (consensus: 2.3%), Eurostat reported.
As expected, the minutes of the European Central Bank's last policy meeting, in June, confirmed that interest rates in the single currency would most likely remain unchanged at least until September 2019.
Closer to home, following the release of the Brexit White Paper by Downing Street, the European Union's chief trade negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the document would now be examined by the bloc's members.
In corporate news, Reuters reported that Airbus had racked-up over $1bn in undelivered jets to China's debt-laden HNA Group.