Talk of euro parity with United States dollar heats up

Every evaluation indicates that the European Central Bank may be looking into further rate cuts and easing to help the struggling economy. "We are seeing investors getting on board", said Nick Lawson, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, though he cautioned that an underwhelming earnings season and a still-sluggish macroeconomic backdrop remained a concern.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 0.3%, reversing early losses after weak Chinese data sparked global growth concerns while the eurozone's blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index was up 0.6% by 1443 GMT.

Oil prices fell on profit-taking while copper prices bounced back from one-month lows.

Investors may be losing confidence in the European Central Bank's ability to keep prices rising, a top policy-setter said on Thursday, another suggestion the central bank remains ready to move. Its chair Janet Yellen said yesterday that a USA rate rise was a prospect for December.

In practice, most eurozone countries already have deposit insurance in place for up to 100,000 euros, but the guarantee is provided by the individual state rather than being shared across the bloc.

Germany's DAX, however, was dragged down by the slump in Volkswagen shares and was trading down 0.2 percent.

A stronger-than-expected reading for private-sector US job growth added to the optimism, lifting the USA dollar and Treasury yields and putting Wall Street shares on track to open higher.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Illinois Sole 24 Ore published on Saturday, he said it was an open question whether a further stimulus was needed.

In order to get a picture of the wider financial sector, analyses of the structure of individual parts of the financial system "will need to be complemented with an analysis of the interconnectedness of these different financial sector components in order to obtain a full picture of possible structural risks to financial stability in the euro area", the European Central Bank said.

Against the yen, the dollar rose about 0.2 percent to 121.23, pulling away from Tuesday's low of 120.60. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was last down 48 cents a barrel at $49.08.

Inflation outlook for 2016 lowered to +1.0%, from a prior+1.5%.

The euro versus the US dollar hitting $1.0843 Wednesday reignited a debate among traders over whether the currency will trade in parity with the dollar before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, the euro dropped to a 2-1/2-month low of 1.5148 against the Australian dollar, from an early high of 1.5272 and held steady thereafter.