Europe close: Shares trim losses after US jobs report

A late rally on the heels of a spate of strong reports on the US economy helped European equities trim early losses on Friday, but failed to fully offset the impact from retreating commodities prices and gloomy Japanese data.

The benchmark he Stoxx 600 was down 1.30% by the closing bell at 333.15 points, with individual country benchmarks all in the red too.

Germany's Dax lost 1.71%, France's CAC 40 down 1.43%, Spain's IBEX down 1.38% and Italy's MIB also 1.88% lower.

Oil prices slid after Saudi Arabia´s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, said his country would only freeze its oil output if Iran did the same.

Brent crude oil futures lost 3.97% to $38.79 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate dropped 3.82% to $36.93 per barrel at 17:24 BST.

The downdraft sent the DJ Stoxx 600 Oil&Gas sector gauge lower by 2.89% to 252.77, while the Basic Resources sector index dropped 2.39% to 260.51.

A solid US jobs report for March knocked euro-dollar off a fresh five-month high at 1.1439 hit just ahead of the release of those figures.

US non-farm payrolls grew by 215,000 in March, edging past forecasts for an increase of 205,000, alongside a larger than expected 0.3% month-on-month gain in average hourly earnings and another up-tick in the labour force participation rate to 63.0%.

Three-month LME-traded copper futures closed 0.5% lower at $4,845 per metric tonne.

Manufacturing PMIs

Chinese stocks were on the up after a surprise jump in manufacturing data for the first time in eight months, though weak Japanese industrial numbers put a dampener on much of this sentiment.

Japanese equities tumbled after the Tankan Survey showed business sentiment among the nation's big manufacturers fell to the lowest in nearly three years in the first quarter.

The headline index stood at +6 in March, half the level seen three months ago and worse than a median market forecast of +8.

European PMIs also seemed to be mostly overlooked by markets, despite a raft of mostly positive final revisions to manufacturing data from around the continent.

For the Eurozone as a whole, purchasing managers' index for the manufacturing sector from Markit came in at 51.6 for March, above the consensus estimate of 51.4 and the previous month's 51.4.

Germany's manufacturing PMI printed at 50.7, above the 50.4 forecast and the 50.4 previously.

UK manufacturing activity expanded less than expected, as output growth remained unchanged from February’s seven-month low, with the PMI coming in at 51.0, up slightly from February’s 34-month low of 50.8. Analysts had forecast a reading of 51.2.

France's 49.6 figure was in line with predictions and flat on the prior month, though the Spanish print of 53.4 was short of the 54.0 estimate and down from February's 54.1.

The Italian PMI at 53.5 was ahead of estimates of 52.5 and up from 52.2 a month ago, with Swiss, Greek and Irish numbers also coming in ahead of forecast.