Europe open: Stocks gain ahead of Powell's Jackson Hole speech

European stocks rose in early trade on Friday as investors eyed a speech by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for further clues on the timing of rate cuts.

At 0855 BST, the benchmark Stoxx 600 index and Germany’s DAX were both up 0.2%, while France’s CAC 40 was 0.4% higher.

Rabobank said: "The major event today is Fed Chair Powell’s key note speech at the Jackson Hole symposium. Overall we would expect a dovish tone from him but it being insufficient to move the market given the volume of cuts that is already priced in 2024.

"Essentially, in our view, to move the market he would need to endorse a 50bp cut in 2024 and this seems unlikely."

In corporate news, Nestle slumped as it announced the departure of chief executive Mark Schneider, who will be replaced by Laurent Freixe.

Jefferies said in a note: "After an increasingly difficult year, it's not a total surprise to see a CEO change at Nestle.

"The new CEO and current Latam head Laurent Freixe will be a familiar face to investors, not only with former experience running Zone Europe and Americas, but also as a contender in the last CEO change.

"At the time, an outsider in Schneider was preferred to shake things up; Freixe's appointment today to us feels like a sign that the board wants to rebuild Nestle culture."

Elsewhere, Direct Line fell after saying it had made a miscalculation in its 2023 Solvency II own funds. It said the solvency capital ratio at the end of 2023 was 188%, down from 197% but still above its risk appetite range of 140% to 180%.

Melrose Industries lost ground after a downgrade to ‘sell’ from ‘buy’ by UBS.