Stocks seen to edge higher, boosted by falling US yields.

As bond rates dropped from recent highs in the wake of lower than anticipated jobs statistics, European stock markets are anticipated to begin Thursday with a little gain. This will be a result of Wall Street's strong close the previous night.

As the most recent private payrolls data showed a smaller increase in September than was anticipated, the major U.S. market indices all saw significant increases on Wednesday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite setting the pace.

U.S. Treasury yields decreased from 16-year highs as a consequence of reducing worries about interest rate increases and the possibility that the Federal Reserve may need to keep rates higher for longer. This helped Asian markets record gains, and the favourable trend is expected to spread to Europe.

Despite this, increases ahead of Friday's important official U.S. jobs data are still probably going to be modest.

Furthermore, the area of Europe's economic future continues to be somewhat gloomy.

More than predicted, statistics released on Wednesday indicated that retail sales in the Eurozone decreased 1.2% in August, indicating a decline in consumer demand as a result of rising inflation.

A recession in the second half of the year is more likely as a result of the fall in both manufacturing and service production, according to the final composite Purchasing Managers' Index, which was also issued on Wednesday.

Despite the little increase in oil prices on Thursday, which followed the previous session's substantial losses, it is unlikely that prices would go much higher given the hazy demand forecast in the wake of the big increase in petrol stockpiles in the United States.

Following the publication of data indicating the greatest weekly rise in almost two years for stocks of U.S. petrol, which suggests a major decline in demand as the summer driving season comes to a close, crude finished more than $5 a barrel down on Wednesday, the worst one-day loss in more than a year.

Saudi Arabia and Russia will continue to reduce their output by at least 1.3 million barrels per day through the end of the year, according to OPEC+, which confirmed this on Wednesday.

(Sources: investing.com, reuters.com)