Europe open: Stocks higher despite hawkish comments from Bank of Norway, SNB
Stocks are moving higher despite continuing trade tensions and somewhat hawkish rhetoric from rate-setters in Norway and Switzerland.
As of 1047 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was edging lower by 0.03% or 0.09 points at 374.85, alongside a rise of 0.16% or 20.44 points to 12,258.18 for Germany's Dax and a gain of 0.28% or 62.49 points to 22,514.83 for Milan's FTSE Mibtel 30.
In parallel, the Norwegian Krona was up by half a percentage point against the US dollar after the country's central bank flagged the possibility of quicker rate hikes this year.
Similarly, following its own policy meeting on Thursday, the Swiss National Bank warned of the risk of a correction in house prices, saying it would continue to regularly assess the need for an increase in lenders' so-called counter-cyclical buffers.
Acting as a backdrop, there were continuing market jitters around trade frictions between China and the US, with the White House having clarified overnight that it was asking China to cut its bilateral trade shortfall with the States by $100bn.
In 2017, the Asian giant's trade deficit with the US reached $375bn, accounting for two-thirds of America's total deficit on trade.
Responding to the message from the White House, state-run Chinese tabloid Global Times said the US was playing the victim.
"If the U.S. wants to reduce its trade deficit, it has to make Americans more hard-working and conduct reforms in accordance with international market demand, instead of asking the rest of the world to change," the tabloid said.
On the economic front in Europe, according to Ireland's Central Statistics Office in 2017 the country's gross domestic product expanded at a year-on-year clip of 7.8%.
For later in the day, in the States, investors were waiting on the release of a slate of economic indicators, including weekly initial unemployment claims data and the Philly Fed regional manufacturing index, both at 1330 GMT.
In the corporate patch, Nikkei cited BASF's regional director for Asia saying the chemicals giant will invest €2.7bn to the region until 2022.
Meanwhile, French pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi said it had issued €8bn of bonds with the aim of lowering its average cost of debt and in order to extend the average maturity of its debt.