European stocks rose in early trade on Friday, halting the week’s sharp drop after Wall Street pared losses as macro data soothed fears about the US economic outlook.

At 0703 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.4 per cent at 1,250.48 points, after losing 3.7 per cent earlier in the week.

But gains looked fragile, and a warning from Rolls-Royce that it would not return to growth next year fuelled worries over corporate profits and sent the shares of the British engineering group down 7 per cent.

The month-long sell-off in European stocks has prompted US-based investors to slash their exposure to Europe, according to data from Thomson Reuters Lipper.

A Lipper poll of 109 U.S.-domiciled funds invested in European stocks, which include exchange-traded funds’ (ETFs) holdings, shows net outflows of $1.3 billion in the seven days to Oct 15, the biggest weekly redemptions since Lipper started to monitor the data in 1992.

Related Topics