European Stocks Are About to Post Their Best Week in 7 Months

European stocks are headed for their best weekly performance in 7 months as strong earnings reports helped reassure investors and calm concerns about rising inflation.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index rose 0.4%, heading towards ending the week 2.3% higher, buoyed by a significant improvement in investor risk appetite in the past two sessions.

Banks were the biggest gainers in Europe after quarterly results that beat expectations from four of the largest lenders on Wall Street on Thursday.

Shares of the retail sales, oil and gas, and travel sectors rose between 0.6 and 1 percent.

And German fashion house Hugo Boss rose 3.8 percent after it raised its expectations for the current year after rebounding third-quarter earnings on the back of strong demand in Europe and the Americas.

Shares of Rio Tinto, listed in Britain, fell 1.3 percent after the Australian mining company cut its forecast for iron ore shipments for 2021 due to the crisis in the labor market, while shares of the Swiss banking software company Temenos fell 14 percent after the results were released.

Shares of French cloud computing services company OVHCloud rose 1.8 percent in its first appearance on the Paris stock market.