European stocks booked solid gains in early trading, building on a Wall Street rally that followed stronger-than-expected jobs data, while gold prices slumped and crude extended declines.
The region-wide Stoxx Europe 600 index, the broadest measure of regional share prices, was marked 0.22% higher at 381.02 in the opening 30 minutes of trading, with Germany's DAX index rising 0.6% and Switzerland's SMI adding 0.5%. Britain's FTSE 100 was marked 0.35% higher in the opening half hour, with gains muted by steep declines for mining stocks.
Gold extended declines in early Monday trading, touching a three-month low, amid a move by investors into higher yielding assets in anticipation of interest rate increases from the world's major central banks.
Spot gold prices were marked 0.6% lower at $1,205.70 in early European trading, the lowest in more than three months, even as the U.S. dollar gave back some of the gains booked in Asia trading.
Global oil prices were also on the back foot, with West Texas Intermediate crude future for August delivery slipping 0.17% to $44.17 and Brent crude contracts for September, the global benchmark, falling 0.13% to $46.65. Both levels extended heavy declines in Friday's trading after the closely-watch Baker Hughes rig count, which tallies weekly U.S. production installations, rose by seven units to 763, the most since April 2015.
Overnight in Asia, the region-wide MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was marked 0.3% higher while a softer yen helped lifted Japan's Nikkei 225 rise 0.8% to close at a one-week high of 20,080.98 points.
Government bond yields, however, which have dictated the direction of equity markets for the past two weeks, continued to edge higher in overnight trading, with benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries rising around 1 basis point to 2.39% in anticipation of further signals from the Fed that it will start reducing its $4.5 trillion balance sheet in the fall.
