US open: JP Morgan leads bank sector higher

The main US market averages were sporting a solid advance and hopefully on track to break a five-day losing streak as bank shares bounced back and crude oil futures snapped higher in volatile trading.

As of 15:56GMT the Dow Jones Industrials was up by 166.25 points or 1.06% to 15,826.43, alongside a 0.97% advance for the S&P 500 to 1,847.19.

Data out at the start of the session appeared to point to solid spending by households going forward, with their sentiment holding up as the recent drop in oil prices offset volatility in capital markets.

The KBW bank index was notching up gains of 2.78% to 58.08 after news broke that JP Morgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon purchased 500,000 shares in the lender for $26m on Thursday, sending the share price up 7% in pre-market trade.

The NYSE Arca Biotech gauge was 0.95% higher to 2,667.53.

Nonetheless, the best performing industrial groups were: full line insurance (5.58%), industrial metals (4.41%), followed by banks (4.36%).

Retail sales volumes Stateside advanced 0.2% month-on-month in January (consensus: 0.1%), thanks to a boost from non-store sales.

"This morning’s release supports our expectation that consumption growth will rebound in Q1. [...] On net, we begin our tracking of Q1 GDP growth at 2.5%, with our estimate of real consumption growth in line with our published forecast at 3.0%," Barclays's Jesse Hurwitz said in a research report sent to clients.

Consumer sentiment more or less held up at the start of February according to a preliminary reading on the University of Michigan's confidence gauge, dipping from 92.0 in January to 90.7 (consensus: 92.3).

"Note the expectations index remains consistent with solid 3% growth in real consumption. We expect little change in the sentiment numbers next month too, with the latest drop in stocks likely to be offset by a 12%-plus collapse in gas prices in February compared to January," said Ian Sheperdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Another red Friday in Asia

Elsewhere, Asian markets sank on Friday, as investors continued their week-long run for cover and offloaded their riskier assets.

Investors were still turning to safe havens, in particular gold, government bonds, and the ever-popular yen. The currency had enjoyed a surge in recent days as its popularity increased, which was bad news for large firms in the island nation as the price of exports has jumped.

"There's obviously a series of worries out there, perhaps the biggest of which is that - aside from China - central banks are pushing around the end of a piece of string and then enter negative interest rates," Salt Funds Management managing director Matthew Goodson told New Zealand's National Business Review on the state of the region.

"What we're seeing in this current sell-off is a loss of faith in risk markets and central banks, and their ability to keep bailing markets out. You've driven risk-free rates even lower, but the risk premium investors demand has gone up.”

European equities racked up healthy gains on Friday, rebounding from heavy losses in the previous session as investors cheered results from the likes of Commerzbank and Rolls-Royce.

Oil price began to rally again, with West Texas Intermediate up 8.6% to $28.67 a barrel and Brent rising 6.36% to $32.10.