Miners advance after Australia tax deal; Genmab, Dana Petroleum soar By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Miners and automakers helped European shares climb from multi-week lows on Friday, although gains were limited ahead of key U.S. jobs data. The Stoxx Europe 600 index (ST:SXXP 238.14, +0.84, +0.35%) rose 0.5% to 238.45. On Thursday, the index ended with a loss of 2.5%, a five-and-a-half week low. That capped a three-session losing streak where the index shed 5.6% as worries about the global economy gathered pace. Friday's U.S. jobs data, due in the afternoon for European investors, is expected to provide a datapoint for investors to try and gauge the strength of the U.S. economy. Payrolls are expected to drop by 130,000 in June after recent readings were boosted by temporary census hiring. Read jobs data preview. Still, miners were advancing Friday after Australia's new government amended its controversial proposed mining tax and as commodity futures advanced. Shares of Xstrata (UK:XTA 874.90, +29.10, +3.44%) rose 1.5% and shares of BHP Billiton (UK:BLT 1,718, +23.00, +1.36%) (BHP 62.42, +0.43, +0.69%) advanced 1%. Autos were also taking back some sharp losses made in the previous session with BMW (DE:BMW 38.67, -0.06, -0.14%) shares up 1.3% and Renault (FR:RNO 30.49, +0.93, +3.13%) shares up 1.7%. BMW's June sales in the U.S. rose 11.9%, and Nissan, which is 44% held by Renault, reported a 10.8% increase in U.S. June sales. Of the major regional benchmarks, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 4,823, +16.86, +0.35%) rose 0.4% to 4,823.45, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,876, +18.94, +0.32%) climbed 0.4% to 5,,880.84 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,351, +10.86, +0.33%) advanced 0.3% to 3,348.73. Asian shares were mixed while U.S. stock futures were flat with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures down 1 point. The dollar traded lower against the euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.2501, -0.0013, -0.1039%) , with the common currency up 0.1% at $1.2520 and British pound (CUR_GBPUSD 1.5187, +0.0022, +0.1451%) rising 0.2% to $1.5189. Deal speculation also featured in Europe. Shares of oil exploration firm Dana Petroleum (UK:DNX 1,378, +201.00, +17.08%) surged 19.4% to 14.05 pounds after the Financial Times newspaper reported that South Korean oil firm KNOC is mulling a 1.5 billion pound takeover offer for the firm. Dana Petroleum said late Thursday that it had received a preliminary offer but didn't disclose which company made the bid. Genmab shares shot up 49.1% after the Danish biotech firm said that it has amended its development deal with GlaxoSmithKline (UK:GSK 1,108, -1.50, -0.14%) (GSK 33.92, -0.09, -0.26%) for ofatumumab and will receive an upfront payment of 90 million pounds. The change will have a material impact on 2010 financial guidance, the firm said. GlaxoSmithKline, down 0.4%, is planning a number of phase II trials for ofatumumab in autoimmune indications, Genmab said. Edenred , spun off from Accor's (FR:AC 23.47, -1.21, -4.88%) prepaid service voucher operations, started trading on Euronext Paris on Friday. The subscription price for the shares was 11.40 euros and the firm recently traded at 14.18 euros. Sodexho (FR:SW 45.75, +0.67, +1.48%) , which has a unit with a similar operation to Edenred, rose 1.7%.

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