Stock market today: In trading on Friday, key stock indicators in Western Europe are showing a decline amid weak financial statements of large European companies. Also, investors are anxiously awaiting the latest key data on the United States labor market.

Thus, at the time of writing, the composite indicator of Europe’s leading companies, STOXX Europe 600, was down 0.26% to 437.94 points. French CAC 40 was down 0.49%, German DAX lost 0.15% and British FTSE 100 decreased 0.14%.

Stock market news today: What’s going on in the market?

The key catalyst for the German stock index DAX rise on Friday was strong macro statistics on Germany. Thus, according to information from the federal statistical office of the state, industrial production in the country unexpectedly increased by 0.4% in June against May. At that point, the market expected the indicator to fall by 0.3%.

Also, today stock market participants in Europe are discussing the results of the August meeting of the Bank of England, which ended the day before. On Thursday, representatives of the regulator warned of the prospects of the UK economy entering a prolonged recession period in the fourth quarter of 2022. 

Also, the day before, the central bank of England increased its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 1.75% from 1.25% per annum as part of the fight against record inflation. The August hike by the regulator was the sixth in a row, and the rate of increase was the fastest since 1995.

Friday night, the U.S. Labor Department will release a report on the nation’s unemployment rate for July. According to analysts’ preliminary scenarios, the figure was unchanged at 3.6% for the month, while the number of jobs in the United States (not including agriculture) rose by 250,000 after a 372,000 increase in June.