U.S. stocks closed mixed Thursday as sharp declines in oil prices weighed. Investors are also looking ahead to the highly-anticipated jobs report due Friday morning.
The Dow Jones industrial average gave up opening gains, briefly falling 100 points before closing 22.7 points lower
European markets bounced back Thursday, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 Index more than 1 percent higher, helped by gains in banking stocks.
However, the STOXX Europe 600 Banks index was still tracking for a weekly decline of 5.5 percent and off nearly 35 percent for the year so far.
Asian shares were steady in early Friday trade as investors brace for U.S. jobs data to see if the world's no. 1 economy is resilient enough to weather the fallout from the Brexit vote.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS were down 0.1 percent while Japan's Nikkei .N225 was up 0.5 percent.
"I would say numbers around the consensus figure will be the most comfortable for markets. Anything below 100,000 will scare investors while reading above 200,000 could rekindle talk of a Fed rate hike even though I suspect people would not seriously expect the Fed to raise rates soon," said Daiwa's Kabeya.
Taiwan's stock market and financial markets will be closed on Friday due to Typhoon Nepartak. Markets will reopen on Monday, July 11.
Reference: Reuters, CNBC
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