Market Update
Stocks in Europe were trading higher after a volatile start, shrugging off Standard & Poor's downgrade of Spain's credit rating and even as several broker downgrades weighed on individual stocks.
At the time of writing, Britain's FTSE, France's CAC and Germany's DAX traded 0.4% to 0.8% higher.
Late Thursday, ratings agency S&P cut Spain's sovereign credit rating from AA to AA- with a negative outlook. The euro traded lower against the U.S. dollar in Asian trading following the downgrade.
Individual stocks remained in focus: Swiss bank UBS was down 2.2% after Fitch downgraded its long-term default rating. Shares in French lender BNP Paribas fell 3.8% after the stock was downgraded from 'buy' to 'hold' by Deutsche Bank.
In other news-driven movers, Unilever was up 1.5% after saying it was buying a Russian skincare-products maker. Kazakhmys gained 2.2% after announcing a share buyback.
In sector movers, miners were broadly higher with BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American were trading between 1% and 1.9% higher.
While technology shares ASML Holding and STMicroelectronics added 2% and 4.3%, respectively, after Google posted robust quarterly earnings in the United States last evening.