Europe open: Stocks edge higher ahead of raft of economic releases

Stocks on the Continent began the Friday session with a small rebound even as they waited on the release of a raft of key economic indicators due out later on both sides of the Atlantic.

Investors were also biding their time ahead of the expected announcement later in the day of Russia's annexation of the new territories taken from Ukraine.

Against that backdrop, as of 0832 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was trading up by 0.77% to 385.84.

Germany's Dax was up by 0.97% alongside to reach 12,093.21 while the FTSE Mib was adding 1.23% to 20,604.45.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government bond was slipping by 13 basis points to reach 4.544%.

Euro/dollar was also on the front foot, edging up by 0.1% to 0.9825.

Dutch TTF gas futures and front-dated Brent crude oil futures were trading essentially flat.

On the economic calendar for Friday, at 0855 BST, Germany's Federal Labor Agency will publish unemployment data covering the month of September.

They will be followed by a preliminary reading on euro area consumer prices referencing that same month.

Consensus is that the annual rate of increase in the cost of living in the single currency bloc picked up from a year-on-year pace of 9.1% for August to 9.7%.

At 1330 BST, the US Department of Commerce will release personal income and spending figures for August and at 1500 BST, the University of Michigan will publish a final reading on its closely followed US consumer confidence index for September.