European equities eased back on Friday, having already recouped all their losses from a bruising 8 per cent correction earlier this week, with markets cooling off slightly despite hopes for more easy central bank policy.

Fears of a slowdown in global economic growth have sparked big price swings across equities, currencies and commodities this week. These fears have yet to leave the market, traders and strategists said, even if loose monetary policy is expected to support stock prices.

“The problems have not gone away...The movement of currencies is still bubbling away underneath,’’ said Paul Chesterton, a trader at brokerage Peregrine & Black. “It’s a little bit of a reality check after the strong recovery.’’

French producer prices fell 0.1 per cent in July from June, while consumer prices in the German state of Saxony fell in August by 0.1 per cent month-on-month. Some economists expect further policy steps from the European Central Bank, which holds a governing council meeting next week.

The FTSEurofirst 300 was down 0.6 per cent, falling slightly below its closing level last Friday but still broadly flat on the week.

The top performing sectors were energy and mining, riding a rise in oil prices on the back of their biggest daily climb in six years. Copper prices edged down after strong gains overnight but remained buoyed by the brighter outlook for world markets.

Strategists pointed to accommodative monetary policy and pockets of value in the wake of the sell-off as reasons to expect more gains ahead. However, they added there was still uncertainty over how exactly a slowdown in China and emerging markets would hit the outlook for earnings.

“(We) remain constructive on equities,’’ Credit Suisse strategists wrote in a note to clients. “We see global growth modestly accelerating...Moreover, further slowdown in China would, in our view, result in more monetary easing globally.

“The bad news we have revised down our earnings-per-share forecasts for 2015 and 2016 to 7 per cent below consensus in Europe for 2015 and 4 per cent below consensus in the US for 2016.’’

Shares of Havas were up 1.5 per cent after the company reported second-quarter like-for-like sales growth of 5.5 per cent.

Hermes fell 1.0 per cent, however, despite a 20-per cent rise in first-half operating income in line with expectations.

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