Europe's main stock markets were broadly stable on Friday morning, the day after closing in the red, with a cautious tone ahead of the release of eurozone inflation figures and the monthly US employment report.

In Paris, the CAC 40 gained 0.03% to 6,763.66 around 08:50 GMT. In London, the FTSE 100 advanced more significantly, by 0.4%, thanks to commodity-related stocks. In Frankfurt, the Dax was down 0.19%, weighed down by the automotive sector.

The EuroStoxx 50 index fell by 0.04%, while the FTSEurofirst 300 nibbled at 0.07% and the Stoxx 600

0,01%.

Futures contracts on the main US indices forecast a rebound of 0.12% for the Dow Jones, 0.15% for the Standard & Poor's 500 and 0.04% for the Nasdaq, after the indices had been penalized the previous day by the ADP survey, which showed that the private sector had created more jobs than expected in the USA in December.

The official Labor Department report is due to be released at 13:30 GMT. The Reuters consensus forecasts 200,000 job creations in December, compared with 263,000 the previous month, a stable unemployment rate at 3.7% and a slowdown in wage growth to 5.0% year-on-year and 0.4% monthly.

In the Eurozone, the two main statistics expected are monthly inflation and retail sales data, scheduled for 10:00 GMT. Reuters expects inflation to decelerate to 9.7% year-on-year and retail sales to contract by 3.3% year-on-year in the currency bloc.

Meanwhile, German retail sales rose by a stronger-than-expected 1.1% month-on-month in November, but German industrial orders contracted much more sharply than expected, while in France, household consumption expenditure edged up by 0.5% in November after falling by 2.7% in October.

On the stock market, gains on the Stoxx 600 were led by basic resources (+0.93%) and energy (+1.03%), the latter driven by last week's fall in US crude oil inventories.

The automotive index, weighed down in particular by Volkswagen (-2.2%) and BMW (-1.89%), posted the biggest sectoral decline.

In corporate results, Sodexo was down 3.34% despite better-than-expected sales in the first quarter of its 2023 fiscal year. (Written by Claude Chendjou, edited by Blandine Hénault)