European Shares Inch Higher In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - European stocks were flat to slightly higher on Friday ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's highly anticipated Jackson Hole speech.

The EUR/USD traded below 1.1600 after the U.S. and the EU formalized their trade truce.

In economic releases, the German economy shrank more than initially estimated in the second quarter, the latest data from Destatis revealed.

Gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent sequentially, reversing a 0.3 percent growth in the first quarter. In the flash estimate, the economy showed a contraction of 0.1 percent.

Elsewhere, the confidence among French manufacturers held steady in August, as expected, monthly data from the statistical office INSEE revealed.

The manufacturing sentiment index stood at 96.0 in August, the same as in July.

The pan European STOXX 600 was up 0.2 percent at 560.36 after ending on a flat note the previous day.

The German DAX edged up 0.1 percent, France's CAC 40 added 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 was marginally higher.

French train manufacturer Alstom rose about half a percent on winning a £75m eight-year maintenance contract with Great Western Railway.

Likewise, construction firm Skanska was up 0.7 percent after it signed a contract to undertake the main cable dehumidification for the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York.

Beauty retailer Revolution Beauty surged 9 percent after successfully raising £15 million through a placing and subscription of new ordinary shares.

Dulux paints maker AkzoNobel jumped 5 percent after activist investor Cevian Capital took a 3 percent stake in the company, according to a filing by Dutch market regulator AFM.