Europe close: Week of information ends with stocks higher

European stocks nudged higher on Friday, struggling for direction following recent gains at the end of a week full of decisions, announcements and data releases.

At close, the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was up 0.23% and France’s CAC 40 was up 0.38%, while Germany’s DAX was 0.59% higher.

Oil prices were mixed as Europe markets closed, though were still looking at solid weekly gains. Brent crude was up 0.53% to $41.75 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was 0.3% lower at $40.08.

A recovering dollar helped to lift exporters as the weekend approached. A strong euro put a dent in exporters on Thursday, after the dollar slid off the back of the Fed's dovish outlook on rates on Wednesday.

Investors digested comments from the European Central Bank’s chief economist, who said in an interview published on Friday that the bank could cut interest rates again if the Eurozone economy does not pick up.

Peter Praet told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that rates had not reached their lower limit yet.

"As other central banks have demonstrated, we have not reached the physical lower boundary," he said.

Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said this week’s central bank meetings have resulted “in gloomy views aplenty fuelling optimism of lower - even negative - rates for longer”.

This week saw the Bank of Japan downgrade its assessment of the country's economy, while the Federal Reserve scaled back its prediction to two rates hikes this year from four in December and the Bank of England cautioned that the EU referendum might affect inflation.

In corporate news, housebuilder Berkeley Group was in the red. Although the company said it expects full year results to be at the top end of expectations, it also said it saw a 4% drop in forward reservations in the three months to the end of February and questioned the government’s response to the housing crisis.

Shares in Italian insurer Generali slipped after its fourth quarter net profit missed analysts’ expectations.

On the upside, Telecom Italia pushed slightly higher despite saying it swung to a net loss in 2015.

Data released by Destatis earlier showed German producer prices fell more than expected in February. Producer prices dropped 0.5% from January, which was steeper than the 0.2% decline pencilled by economists, as energy prices slid 9.4% on the month.

On the year, producer prices were down 3%, missing expectations for a 2.6% drop.

Dennis de Jong, managing director at UFX.com, said: “With the price of goods continuing to decline, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble will be concerned about what implications this will have on inflation within his European powerhouse.

“As Europe’s largest and strongest economy, Germany carries the can for much of the Eurozone, so this less-than-impressive data could have a knock-on effect that will send reverberations across the continent."