The 19-member euro zone grew by 0.3 percent in the third quarter, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat said on Friday, reinforcing expectations that the European Central Bank will expand its monetary stimulus next month.
Despite Brent crude settling higher on Thursday, Simon Wardell of IHS Global Insight feels that crude prices will ease off these recent bounces and will trend downwards. He feels the prices have been declining on the back of global economic weakness and also reasonable supply coming through from non OPEC countries.
New US claims for unemployment benefits rose higher than expected last week, but the healing trend in the jobs market remains intact. Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global Insight says the key focus is how all this improved hiring will look in the coming months.