Europe open: Slight gains ahead of key speech from US president Trump

Stocks were seeing slight gains at the start of trading in Europe, tracking the 11th consecutive higher close for the Dow Jones Industrials on Friday - the longest such streak in over two decades.

As of 0825 GMT the Stoxx 600 was up by 0.03% or 0.12 points to 370.13, alongside gains of 0.32% for the German Dax and a 0.30% rise for the Cac-40.

In parallel, front month Brent crude futures were advancing by 0.95% and changing hands at $56.54 a barrel on the ICE.

"While the Dow managed to eke out a positive close for the eleventh day in a row it was hardly a convincing finish given that it spent all but the last 5 minutes of the entire session in negative territory," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

He said investors were looking ahead to a speech by Trump to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday.

"For about three weeks now markets have been awaiting further details on the so called 'phenomenal' tax plan that the President promised us on the 9th February when he was at a meeting of airline executives. This statement helped push the Dow conclusively through the 20,000 and up another 3% at a time when the Trump trade was beginning to get a little tired."

Rebecca O'Keeffe, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said politics was the key driver of sentiment for European equities on Monday.

"UK equities are being given a helping hand as sterling has dropped further on the back of reports that there will be a new Scottish Independence vote. Sterling was already faltering on expectations that the House of Lords is going to force changes to the draft Brexit bill and the combination of these two events has put the pound under increased pressure, boosting the global FTSE100 index.

"In France, increased support for Emmanuel Macron has slightly eased fears of another political revolution and helped market sentiment."

The European Central Bank will publish its latest M3 money supply figures for the month of January at 0900 GMT, followed by the European Commission's industrial and consumer confidence gauges for the euro area one hour later.

Stateside, the main focus of markets would be January's durable goods orders figures at 1330 GMT, alongside pending home sales data, also for January, at 1500 GMT.

In corporate news, the merger of London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse may be off, as the LSE said it would not divest MTS, a trading platform for European government bonds, as requested by the EU.