Europe open: Stocks gain after oil price rebound, cautious Fed minutes

European stocks gained on Thursday as oil prices rebounded and the Federal Reserve struck a cautious tone in its meeting minutes.

Oil prices rose after the American Petroleum Institute said on late Wednesday crude supplies fell 6.7 million barrels for the week ended 1 July. The closely watched Energy Information Administration report is due at 1600 BST.

Brent crude climbed 0.53% to $49.04 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate increased 0.60% to $47.72 per barrel.

Meanwhile, minutes of the Fed’s 14-15 June policy meeting on late Wednesday showed most policymakers agreed to keep interest rates to a range between 0.25% and 0.5% following a weak May jobs report and uncertainty leading up to Britain’s 23 June European Union referendum.

“The cautious tone from the FOMC minutes on Wednesday may be giving investors a lift today,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.

“The Brexit vote alone is likely to deter them from raising rates until at least the end of the year as they wait to see what the knock on effects will be, both from an economic and financial markets perspective.”

The European Central Bank at 1230 BST releases its own account of its last policy meeting in June when members also decided to keep policy unchanged. Investors will be focusing on any remarks with regard to Brexit.

In economic data, German industrial production fell the most in 21 months in May amid a global economic slowdown and political uncertainty in Europe. Production fell 1.3% from the previous month when it increased a revised 0.5%, the Economy Ministry said. Economists had pencilled in zero growth.

Still to come, UK industrial and manufacturing production at 0930 BST, US initial jobless claims at 1330 BST and the NIESR’s UK gross domestic product estimate at 1500 BST.

On the company front, Marks & Spencer was in the red after reporting a like-for-like drop in clothing and home sales in the 13 weeks to 2 July while food sales fell 0.9%.

Danone shares jumped after saying it will acquire WhiteWave Foods in a deal that values the US organic foods producer at $12.5bn.

Sports Direct surged after saying total group revenue was up 2.5% to £2.9bn in the year to 24 April, with gross group margin improving 0.4% to 44.2%.