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Europe midday: Stocks higher, central banks and international trade in focus
Stocks are holding higher despite somewhat hawkish rhetoric from rate-setters in Norway and Switzerland, against a backdrop of continuing trade tensions, with the market spotlight having shifted to the US and China.
As of 1158 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was edging higher by 0.11% or 0.41 points to 375.35, alongside a rise of 0.33% or 40.0 points to 12,277.92 for Germany's Dax and a gain of 0.30% or 66.85 points to 22,519.19 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.
The SNB also warned it was keeping open the option of intervening in foreign exchange markets to stave off any unwarranted gains in the franc.
Acting as a backdrop, overnight the White House clarified that it was asking China to cut its yearly 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 in 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's 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.
Societe Generale shares on the other hand were trading lower after deputy chief executive officer Didier Valet resigned in the wake of differences on how to approach a specific legal case, which market commentary linked to outstanding claims that it participated in the alleged rigging of LIBOR rates.