European stocks rise on Chinese economic recovery hopes

European stocks rose on Thursday, to snap the two-session losing streak on profit-taking. While Chinese data raised hopes about the recovery of its economy, in addition to hopes about coronavirus treatment and vaccines, amid signs on progress in scientific research.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index  rose 0.4% as of 11:35 GMT, after closing lower by 0.7% yesterday, on profit-taking from a 4-week high of 372.37 points.

The pan European index opened higher today, to head for the first daily gain in 3 days, with most European markets and sectors seeing green today.

The tech sector saw the largest gains in Europe today, rising by 1.7%, after SAAB shares jumped more than 6.5%, as the company better than expected business results in the second quarter, and announced its expectations for increasing earnings in 2020.

Chinese stock markets rallied for the eighth straight day, raising hopes for the recovery of the world's second largest economy, following the successive strong economic data, which raised hopes about the recovery of the economy from the coronavirus crisis.

The coronavirus continued to spread in the US, Brazil and India, as cases surpassed the 12 million cases barrier globally, but there's still hopes about containing and eliminating this pandemic, as the we are near the development of effective medicines and vaccines, amid signs on progress in scientific research.

S&P 500 futures fell 0.5%%, after the index closed higher by 0.8% yesterday at Wall Street, posting its sixth daily gain in 7, on tech sector gains and stimulus hopes in the US.

Back to Europe, the Euro Stoxx 50 index rose 0.6%, France's CAC 40 rose 0.2%, Germany's DAX added 1.5%, while the UK's FTSE 100 fell 0.4%.