Europe midday: Stocks move into the green tracking U.S. equity futures

(Sharecast News) - Stocks on the Continent were trading on the front foot for the most part, tracking positive indications from U.S. equity futures before the opening bell on Wall Street. Stronger-than-expected weekly jobless data released the day before in the US had triggered a move higher in government bond yields, prompting selling in U.S. stocks.

As of 1144 BST, the pan-European Stoxx 600 had flipped into the green by 0.12% to 464.36, alongside similarly-sized gains for the other main regional indices.

The German Dax was the exception and remained lower by 0.35% at 16,146.18.

Some investors might also be keeping their cards close to their chest ahead of potentially key central bank policy meetings in the euro area, Japan and US scheduled for the following week.

Also on the horizon was the 28-30 July Chinese Politburo meeting, although according to Morgan Stanley the scale and areas of the economy to be targeted had yet to be confirmed.

Dragging on the German benchmark gauge were shares of software maker SAP which earlier reported weaker-than-expected second quarter sales at its cloud unit.

Sentiment towards technology issues more generally was also hit by news overnight that Taiwan Semiconductor had cut its outlook and pushed back the expected date for the start of production in the at its US plant in Arizona until 2025.

The Stoxx 600 Technology sub-index was off by 0.61% as a result, but was trading well off its intra-day lows.