European stock-index futures climb

European stock-index futures climbed, following the biggest weekly advance for the region’s equity benchmark in two months, as Chinese economic growth matched forecasts. US index futures and Asian shares gained.

UK banks and construction companies may rise after Rightmove said British house prices will increase more than forecast.

Commerzbank may move on a report that the German government has discussed selling its shares to UBS.

AstraZeneca may be active after the drugmaker said its chief financial officer will leave the company to join BG Group.

Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 Index, a benchmark for the euro area, added 0.4 per cent to 2,680 at 7.19am in London.

Contracts on the UK’s FTSE 100 Index gained 0.3 per cent.

Standard and Poor’s 500 Index futures rose 0.2 per cent, while the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.2 per cent.

“European equities are set to start the week with a slight bid at the open on Chinese data,” Jonathan Sudaria, a trader at Capital Spreads in London, wrote in e-mailed comments.

“The fact that it wasn’t substantially lower is the reason for this morning’s buoyancy.”

China’s gross domestic product rose 7.5 per cent in the April-to-June quarter from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing.

The economy expanded at a 7.7 per cent pace in the first quarter.

The country’s minister for finance Lou Jiwei signalled last week that the world’s second-biggest economy may expand less than the government has targeted this year and that growth as low as 6.5 per cent may be tolerable in the future.

Stocks still rallied around the world last week, with the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index gaining 2.7 per cent and the SandP 500 closing at a record, as Federal Reserve chairman Ben S Bernanke backed sustained monetary stimulus for the world's largest economy.

The Stoxx 600 has pared its retreat from its 2013 high on May 22 to 4.6 per cent.

Barclays and Persimmon, the UK's largest housebuilder by market value, may lead banks and construction companies higher after Rightmove data showed asking prices for British homes climbed for a seventh month to a record in July.

The London-based property-website operator also said that house prices will increase twice as much this year as previously forecast.

AstraZeneca might be active after the drugmaker said CFO Simon Lowth will leave the company at the end of October after BG Group appointed him in the same role. He joins BG in November.

Bloomberg