Peter Nurse 

Investing.com: European stock markets will open unchanged on Friday. Investors are advised to be cautious as key U.S. employment data could give new clues about the timing and location of Federal Reserve tapering.

The contract in Germany was trading 0.1% higher at 02:05 AM ET (615 GMT), while the one in France traded 0.1% lower and the one in the U.K traded mostly unchanged.

A monthly official, due to be published Friday night, is set to release. This report is expected to indicate a recovery in the labor market which will allow the Federal Reserve’s massive bond-buying programme to slow down. Wednesday’s strong release already hinted at robust job gains, although the correlation between the two reports has weakened during the pandemic.

It is anticipated that the economy will have created 500,000 new jobs in September. This represents a significant increase from August’s 235,000. 

European markets had received a positive handover from Asia after Chinese mainland markets reopened from a week-long holiday and the country’s services sector made a return to growth in September. The came in at 53.4 in September, compared with the previous month’s 46.7.

Wall Street closed higher on Thursday due to the U.S. Senate passing legislation temporarily increasing the debt limit of the federal government and avoiding a historic default.

Stellantis, DE:, will soon be in the corporate sector after it announced that the Opel auto giant is looking at spinning off its two largest Opel plants. Unions consider this a prelude to permanent closing. Because of chip shortages, the Eisenach facility has been closed since the beginning of this year.

Crude prices pushed higher once more Friday, heading for a seventh weekly gain, as doubts emerged over whether the U.S. Energy Department was considering releasing oil from the country’s strategic reserves.

A potential U.S. increase in supply to the market was suggested Thursday by some as a means of reducing oil prices. These are at multi-year highs due to improved fuel demand. Due to the fact that OPEC producers have been gradually increasing production, and a fear of a colder winter further straining gas supplies, they have climbed.

Futures were trading 1.6% higher at $79.53 per barrel by 2:15 AM ET while contract prices rose 1.3% to $83.05. WTI hit an all-time high of nearly 7 years earlier this week. It also reached a 3-year record.

Also, the price edged up to $1759.55/oz and traded 0.1% higher at 1.1547.