Santa Rally Continues With Rising European Stocks

REUTERS/Neil Hall

European shares are climbing on most of the major indices after an extremely strong day for equities worldwide on Thursday.

Here's the scorecard:

France's CAC 40: +0.73%

Germany's DAX: +0.51%

UK's FTSE 100: +0.70%

Spain's IBEX: +0.45%

Italy's FTSE MIB: -0.30%

Asian markets closed up too. Japan's Nikkei ended up 2.39%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed 1.25% and China's Shanghai Composite ended 1.67% higher. 

US futures are nudging higher too: The Dow is up 74 points and the S&P 500 is 7.25 points higher. 

There's no major data out today, but UK public finances at 9:30 a.m. GMT will offer a signal of whether the Treasury can reach its borrowing targets this fiscal year. To manage that, borrowing needs to fall by 25% over the next five months in comparison to the same period last year, according to Lloyds.