World stocks soothed by US jobs data

Global stocks and the dollar steadied on Monday after unexpectedly strong U.S. jobs data soothed concerns about the global economy, though diplomatic tensions remained a worry as the White House warned Russia could invade Ukraine any day.

The January payrolls report on Friday showed annual growth in average hourly earnings climbed to 5.7 per cent, from 4.9 per cent, while payrolls for prior months were revised up by 709,000 to radically change the trend in hiring.

The data added to the risk of aggressive rate rises by the Federal Reserve, however, and markets are also pricing in tightening in Britain and the euro zone.

"The most dominant thing is still central banks and the tightening we see there, that has led to the volatility," said Matthias Scheiber, global head of portfolio management at Allspring Global Investments.

"The labour data looked good, that basically saved the market."

After a bumpy ride last week, the MSCI world equities index (.MIWD00000PUS) was flat. European stocks (.STOXX) and Britain's FTSE (.FTSE) were also steady.

S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures both slipped 0.3 per cent, after last week's market turmoil in growth-sensitive tech stocks saw Amazon.com Inc gain almost $200 billion while Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) lost just as much.

The US dollar index edged up 0.05 per cent to 95.491 , after shedding 1.8 per cent last week.

The euro was down 0.05 per cent at $1.1441 , having shot up 2.7 per cent last week in its best performance since early 2020 as markets brought forward the likely timing of a first euro zone rate rise.