Europe Markets

European stocks rose Friday, alongside U.S. equity futures as investors waited to see if the latest American jobs numbers will show damage from the resurgent pandemic. Drug and energy companies were leading the gains.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index SXXP, +0.21% rose 0.2% after a mostly flat session Thursday. The index has gained 0.8% this week to kick off the last trading month of 2021. The FTSE 100 UK:UKX led the regional indexes with a 0.7% gain, while the German DAX DAX, -0.01% was flat and the French CAC 40 PX1, +0.42% rose 0.4%.

U.S. stock futures rose. On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.28% closed higher and S&P 500 SPX, -0.06% finished lower, but both off intraday highs after Pfizer PFE, -1.74% said it expected to ship only half of the vaccines it had planned to deliver this year. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.22% booked a new closing record.

Read: Biden to call for 100 days of mask-wearing, will keep Fauci as chief medical adviser

Investors are waiting for U.S. payrolls data, which is expected to show jobs growth slowed in November amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths in recent weeks. Economists polled by MarketWatch are predicting a 438,000 rise, down from the 638,000 gain seen in the previous month.

In Europe, data from Germany showed manufacturing orders rose for the sixth straight month ahead of a second lockdown.

Major oil companies were higher, with shares of Royal Dutch Shell RDSA, +2.24% RDS.A, +0.87% and BP BP, +1.37% BP, +2.62% up 3% each, and Total TOT FR:FP up around 2%. Those gains came as crude prices CL.1, +1.90% BRN00, +1.99% continued to rise after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies on Thursday agreed to a gradual rise in crude production starting in January, defying earlier expectations for an extension of current cuts in output.

Leading the Stoxx 600 gainers, shares of Dassault Aviation AM, +5.97% climbed over 6% after a report in French weekly financial newspaper, La Tribune, that Indonesia may buy 48 Rafale jet fighters.

Shares of Associated British Foods ABF, +2.34% rose nearly 3% after the U.K. conglomerate said autumn store closures likely cost it 430 million pounds ($578.4 million) in sales, but that it still expects full-year Primark revenue and profit to beat fiscal 2020 results.

SSE SSE, +3.34% shares rose 4%. The FTSE 100 energy company said that Italian oil group ENI ENI, +2.31% E, +0.49% has agreed to acquire a 20% stake in the Dogger Bank A and B wind farm project owned by SSE and Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company Equinor EQNR, -0.18% EQNR, +2.15%.

Also contributing to the Stoxx 600 gains, shares of heavily weighted drugmakers AstraZeneca AZN, -1.14% AZN, +1.68% and GlaxoSmithKline GSK, -0.34% were up more than 2% each.

Dow loses momentum and S&P 500 ends lower in last hour of trade Thursday as Pfizer said to slash rollout target for COVID-19 vaccine

U.S. stocks finished mostly higher but lost momentum within Thursday's final hour of trade after the Wall Street Journal reported that Pfizer Inc. undefined expects to ship half of the COVID vaccines it originally planned for this year because of supply-chain problems, but still expects to roll out more than a billion doses in 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average undefined closed up 0.3% at around 29,969, but off its best levels Thursday at 30,110.88, pushing it below a closing record. The S&P 500 index undefined finished 0.1% lower at 3,667, off its intraday high at 3,682.73, while the Nasdaq Composite Index [: COMP] rose 0.2% at 12,377, but well off its best level at 12,439.02. Markets had surged higher on Thursday U.S. stock indexes took a leg higher on the session after the U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said reaching a compromise on another coronavirus fiscal package was possible, as long as Democrats moved toward Republican positions, offering some hope of progress toward a fiscal pact for bullish investors.