European Stocks Edge Lower; Daimler Lifts Its Profit Outlook By Investing.com – Investing.com

European Stocks Edge Lower; Daimler Lifts Its Profit Outlook By Investing.com – Investing.com

© Reuters.

By Peter Nurse 

Investing.com - European stock markets edged lower Friday, ending the week on a negative tone as investors study a slew of corporate earnings, particularly from Daimler, and economic data releases.

At 4:10 AM ET (0910 GMT), the in Germany traded 0.1% lower, the in France fell 0.3% and the U.K.'s was down 0.4%.

European markets suffered a negative handover from Wall Street, with the major U.S. indices all dropping around 0.9% late Thursday, their biggest slide in five weeks, on reports that is set to propose almost doubling capital-gains tax for the wealthy.

That said, losses are small, helped by signs of an improving economic picture in Europe as a whole. and manufacturing PMI numbers came in better than expected, well above the 50 expansion threshold, while U.K. jumped 5.4% on the month in March, climbing 7.2% on the year, way ahead of expectations.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde assured the market on Thursday that pullbacks in the central bank's emergency program were not under discussion despite its prediction of a strong rebound in the euro zone economy from mid-year.

This comes as the region starts to get a grip of the latest